Parker Hageman

Very good observation and thoughts. While I think the balance factor isn't an issue for Sano's pitch recognition portion, it definitely does effect his swing. I just finished reading The MVP Machine (sick reading brag, I know) and they talk to hitting instructor Doug Latta -- who rebuilt Justin Turner and Mookie Bett's swing -- emphasizes balance in the swing. He works to instill some bigger movement in guys like Turner and Betts but both swings have adjustability and balance (and both can hit the fastball upstairs). You look where their hands are at and, while they move like Sano's, they get to the launch point much sooner in the process. Here's one last video that was left on the article's cutting room floor (mostly because I felt like I had beaten the point to death) was this clip of Mike Trout's swing covering the northern and southern reaches of the strike zone: This, to me, is what all hitters should strive for.

When Miguel Sano first arrived in Minnesota in 2015, Twins team president Dave St. Peter said that fans “don't want to miss a Miguel Sano at-bat because you just never know what might happen, and at any given moment, he may hit a home run 500-plus feet. That's a trait very few players have.” In August 2015 during the Summer of Sano, the rookie bashed nine home runs, one dinger every 10.78 at bats. He also struck out in 38 percent of his plate appearances. Four seasons later, Sano still has that massive power. He has hit a home run in one out of every 11.67 at bats in 2019. He also has struck out in 42 percent of his plate appearances. From day one it’s an all-or-nothing approach for Sano but the narrative feels like it is trending more to the nothing. It does not have to be this way. Sano doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing hitter. Here's how he can move toward being a complete hitter.There is no denying that Miguel Sano hasn't been clicking on all cylinders.This season, Sano has approximately one portion of the zone in which his swing does damage. See if you can pick that out. Download attachment: trumedia_baseball_grid.png On balls that are thrown on the outer-third/middle-third section, Sano is hitting .579 with five home runs. It is absolutely crazy that teams still manage to pour a pitch or two in that area every couple of games -- just like the Royals did twice this past series -- but it happens because Sano’s largest swing holes happen to be a section above or a section below that spot. Let's start by discussing his inefficiencies above that spot. Sano’s swing path is highly susceptible to fastballs up in the zone. With the increasing emphasis on high spin fastballs, it is no surprise that teams have gone upstairs on him. In two-strike counts this year, Sano has swung-and-missed at 90 percent of fastballs. That’s helpless territory. So what can the big man do to fill this swing hole that can be seen from space? The first is simply learn to lay off that pitch. To Sano’s credit, he has actually decreased the amount of swings at fastballs up in the zone over his previous years. Early in the count he spits on those pitches, swinging at only a quarter whereas in the past, there was a 50-50 chance that he would take a hack. Contrary to what you might have heard on the local broadcasts, umpires are actually not calling more strikes on fastballs up in the zone. In 2011, if you took an elevated fastball, there was a 23 percent chance it would be called a strike. So far in 2019 those fastballs have been called a strike 17 percent of the time, which is the lowest rate dating back to 2009. So there isn’t a grand umpire conspiracy to call more elevated fastballs strikes. Laying off more of those pitches is not going to advance the count in a pitcher’s favor. What’s more is that hitters in general have curbed their appetites for high fastballs as well, demonstrating a swing diet three percentage points lower this season than it was in 2017 when the Boston Red Sox pitching staff rode the elevated fastball to the American League’s second best ERA. Teams have started to use spin data to help hitters know when they should adjust their approach, swinging above the baseball when there’s a high spin hurler on the mound. They have also incorporated more high velocity pitching machines in batting practice that attempts to duplicate what they will face that night rather than facing a soft-tossing coach for on-field bee pee. So it is no surprise to see offenses starting to counter the attack. That being said, when hitters do offer at high fastballs, they are missing at a greater rate than ever before and Miguel Sano is no exception. Although he is swinging less frequently than he has in his career, he is swinging through more. Compared to last year, Sano swung and missed at 34 percent of elevated four-seamers. This year that’s at a grotesque 50 percent clip (and you will recall the sheer futility in the aforementioned two-strike situations). So far in 2019 Sano has opted for the path of least resistance -- not swinging at elevated fastballs, at least until it is imperative that he protect the zone. Given what he is currently working with, this is a decent option. Sano has what ill-informed broadcasters like to call a “launch angle swing” but, more accurately, Sano’s swing path is down-to-up trajectory that does a ton of damage on balls down in the zone. In his career, the big man holds a .698 slugging percentage against all fastball types in the lower third of the zone. At the top of the zone, pitchers have turned him into Drew Butera with a .287 slugging percentage. It is no surprise then to see that in a series versus Boston, frontrunners in the high fastball industry, Sano struck out 9 times in 15 plate appearances as the Red Sox pitchers threw 26 of their 41 fastballs in the upper third of the strike zone (he swung through 36 percent of those too). So while we can point to Sano’s swing path as a reason why he has trouble catching high fastballs on the barrel that doesn’t answer the question as to why he swings over breaking balls that actually bounce in a neighboring zip code. For anyone who follows PitchingNinja or Driveline coaches on Twitter knows, pitchers have some absolutely filthy stuff right now and, to make matters worse, they have also found ways to make it even more disgusting. The TrackMan data has helped pitchers tunnel pitches better. The high speed cameras and Rapsodo devices have helped add extra break. Hitters are completely outgunned. At the very least Major League Baseball has seemingly done the hitters a solid by tossing in a juiced ball to help even the playing field but pitchers have the development advantage. So there is an element of that behind Sano’s increased strikeout rate. There is also an element of simply telling Miguel Sano to go up there and be Miguel Sano -- the man who can crush monster second deck tanks. Rip the governor off and open it up. Chuck three pointers and don’t worry about the missed shots. Strikeouts be damned. But that’s not why Sano has trouble with his pitch selection. One issue that appears to be hindering him his timing mechanism in his mechanics. It is a main reason why he keeps getting beat on fastballs up, regardless of velocity. And it’s one of the factors behind his inability to lay off those acid-soaked breaking balls. Watch this clip of Sano next to teammate Nelson Cruz. Watch for where they get their hands to the launch point (where the bat starts firing forward). Download attachment: FSFrameGIFImage (2).GIF If you are stumped, here it is: Download attachment: Cruz-Sano.png What you will notice is that Cruz has his hands and bat in a position to fire forward before the 97-mile-per-hour fastball leaves Gerrit Cole’s fingers. It requires no extra travel from this point. This gives him additional time to read and react. Sano, on the other hand, brings his hands back to a spot when Ryan Braiser’s 97-mile-per-hour cheese is quickly approaching the plate. This means he has to make his decision to swing earlier -- before getting the right read on the spin. This is part of the reason why you see Sano swinging over so many breaking balls: out of the hand they look destined for that juicy lower third of the zone before *fart noises* vanishing. Furthermore, Sano has a rolling launch point, almost continually moving his hands which means that he will get beat on fastballs up as well as inside if he starts them late. As another example, consider Mike Trout. Admittedly, it is cheating to take the world’s greatest living hitter and say “do what he’s doing” but there are some existing components in Trout’s swing path that is similar to Sano’s. Both Trout and Sano share that down-to-up swing that decimates balls low in the zone. However, Trout has the ability to get to pitches up in the zone (although, like Sano, this year he’s spitting on more of them). Similar to Cruz, Trout gets his hands to the launch point early, giving him time to recognize the pitch and shut down his swing on things he doesn’t like. Download attachment: Sano Cruz Trout.png It’s difficult to tell hitters change their approach drastically in midseason -- especially when every one out of eleven at bats results in a home run. Still, it is not about a total overhaul, it’s making the right tweaks to improve deficiencies. This is something that just a few years ago, Jorge Polanco cleaned up and has since entered the land of ten thousand rakes. Prior to making that change, he had posted a .245/.296/.351 batting line in 147 games. Since taking the slack out of his drawback, Polanco has hit .308/.368/.502 over his last 204 games. Polanco had been blessed with world class bat-to-ball skills but this modification has allowed him to drive the ball. Another successful Twins convert of the reduced slack swing was Eduardo Escobar. Escobar modified his swing in 2017 which gave him the ability to better differentiate fastballs and breaking balls. From 2014 through 2016, Escobar produced a .626 OPS versus breaking balls with a 30 percent strikeout rate. From 2017 on, he’s posted a .815 OPS against breaking balls and reduced his strikeout rate to 25 percent. And he still hammers fastballs. Sano could be one of them. He could be like Polanco or Escobar. He could be a non-slacker. While the movement may seem minor, it takes a lot of muscle memory to commit that to the body. There are plenty of hitters too, like Sano, who have similar big pre-swing movements (Josh Donaldson comes to mind) but those hitters get their hands to the launch point sooner as well. The solution may not be to swing like Cruz, Polanco or Trout, it maybe simply get your hands moving earlier in the process. There is no question that Sano can hit a ton in his swing plane. His exit velocity on fastballs down in the zone is 98 miles per hour. But more teams are seeing the blueprints to getting him out -- avoid the lower portion of the zone. When or if the adjustments come, then maybe -- just maybe -- we can stop reading about Miguel Sano’s supposed failure as a player. Click here to view the article

My quick and dirty drive-by on Allen is that the velocity drop is a bit of a concern but what jumps out is how both his fastball and curveball have been ineffective. So I went to look at StatCast's data and found that Allen has had significant issues tunneling his pitches in 2019. Here are two Cody Allen outings versus the Twins, the first from 2017 and the second from this year. In 2017 his recognition point -- the point where hitters decipher the pitch type -- and the commit point -- where they swing -- have a tight cluster between his two pitches. It's difficult to distinguish the fastball versus the curve. This season however, after tinkering with his mechanics in spring training, it resulted in the two pitches being able to be recognized easier. The knuckle curve now tunnels through a higher spot than the fastball. Many teams now have those types of reports waiting for hitters (i.e. if you see the ball coming from this window, it's a X). Here it is at a glance: Allen, despite the velocity in the low-90s now, still has a very high spin rate fastball -- one that would be the highest on the Twins' staff. that can play. Interestingly, perhaps because of his mechanics tinker or maybe because of the Angels direction, Allen did not use that fastball up in the zone as much as he did in his Indians days. The Twins will attempt to reign all this in. Unlike the Angels, they have a robust analytics team, coaching staff and now have shown they are effective at using both. I don't know if Allen will be able to get to where he needs to be but if the Twins can tweak him, he could be a very good arm in the bullpen down the stretch. Time will tell.

The check swings aren't inherently bad. It's often a product of the YES-YES-NO approach in the box (getting the swing started early then shutting it down late when you don't like the pitch). I don't know if I would call it regularly -- it's just 18 swing/misses on pitches 94 mph and lower -- however, and I've pointed this out over the years, Sano's swing isn't conducive to fastballs up in the zone. That's where the majority of his swing/misses are on those, regardless of velo. Boston picked him apart up there this series.

Nearly every team in Major League Baseball uses some variation of pitch tracking technologies to analyze their pitchers. By now, you have undoubtedly heard that the Minnesota Twins have gone all-in on the Rapsodo craze. However, if you are not entrenched in a team's analytics department or pitching staff, you may not know what that provides. Fortunately, this past spring our high school baseball program had the luxury of having our pitchers throw under the watchful, data-collecting eye of a Rapsodo device. Here’s what we discovered.To other coaches and players out there: Buy one. I cannot recommend this enough. There is almost no substitute for the advantage that this tech can create as far as pitching development goes. If you cannot afford the $4,000 price tag -- which, let’s be honest, not many high school programs can -- go find a nearby college program or a private baseball training facility that has one and see if you can use it. That's what we did. In March Chanhassen High School’s newly minted head coach Ross VanHauen -- a forward-thinking, Driveline podcast-listening, constant learner -- connected with Starters Sports Training in Shakopee and arranged for the program the use of Starter’s Rapsodo device at their facility as part of the pitching evaluation process. Not only would we get a consistent velocity baseline for pitchers across all grade levels, we would also be able to gather spin rates — maybe even identifying a Ryne Harper-type pitcher who may have underwhelming velo but spun breaking balls at an unhittable rate. Plenty of the arms in the system had worked with private instructors and some had experience using Rapsodo device but for those that didn’t participate in club programs or showcase events, we wanted a better understanding of what we were working with. We wanted, nay, needed to the data. From my personal perspective, as a new member of the Chanhassen coaching staff, these were pitchers with whom I had no prior interaction and this data could help quickly establish a roadmap going forward. In most cases, it would take days, weeks, and hours of observing bullpens and game action to properly quantify how a pitcher’s arsenal works. There are some obvious things that can be ascertained from watching a bullpen -- for instance, a pitcher’s arm slot can tell you a lot about how certain pitches should behave -- but Rapsodo data was a bridge that connected the seen and the unseen. What the first visit amounted to was a basic light bullpen session: Each player threw 25-30 pitches, displaying their fastballs, changeups and whatever they felt was their breaking ball. One of the initial objectives was to determine how everyone’s breaking ball works. When you ask a young pitcher what they throw, they will often say “curveball”, a generic catchall for their secondary pitch. In actuality, it spins or moves closer to a slider or slurve. Rapsodo can differentiate this because it measures spin efficiency — basically the ratio of the transverse spin (movement spin) to total spin. Curveballs tend to have a spin efficiency over 60% (with most of the big league curveballs operating at a near 100% spin efficiency mark). What we learned on the first day with a Rapsodo was that the vast majority of pitchers in our program fell short of that rate. By our account, there were approximately four pitchers in the entire program who threw what would be truly classified as a curveball. Here is a real world example of the difference between a high spin efficiency and a low spin efficiency breaking ball. These two right-handed pitchers in the Chanhassen program have very good secondary pitches that have distinctly different movements. On the left is junior Greg Ryun (2020) while on the right is freshman Jake Ryan (2022). Here is their breaking ball grips at release: On the left, Greg’s breaking ball had over ten inches of horizontal break and five inches of drop on average with a 49 percent spin efficiency. This running slurve aided Greg in registering 27 strikeouts in 20.1 innings in the varsity season. Comparatively, Jake, who spent his first year in the program at the junior varsity level, had a breaking ball with five inches of horizontal run and nearly 20 inches of vertical break and a robust spin efficiency of 89 percent. This big breaking 12-to-6er complemented his high spin fastball extremely well. You can see how the two pitches fall on the pitch type spectrum. Download attachment: GRJS_RP.PNG A lot of how a pitcher’s breaking ball moves is connected with his arm slots. As pitching instructor Lantz Wheeler explains, it’s an arranged marriage: Those with a three-quarter or lower tend of have more slurve, horizontal running breaking balls while those with over-the-top deliveries favor 12-6 breaking ball action. This was a big distinction between pitchers like Greg, who released his pitch at a little over five feet in height, compared to Jake, who released his closer to six feet in height. What can you do once with that data and knowledge? Let’s say you are a pitcher with a low spin efficiency breaking ball, what could you do going forward? From a practical standpoint, you could do several things. You could attempt to adjust the grip and/or release to create more of a curveball action. You could embrace the slider ride, trying to reduce that spin efficiency and increase some velocity. Using Greg’s slurve as an example, if he were so inclined he could refine it into more of a slider, adding velocity and reducing the spin efficiency. It would better suit his arm angle. That said, if he wanted to have more of a curve sharp he could work on increasing the vertical drop. Or do both. However, without regular access to a Rapsodo and having a high-speed camera fixed on the pitcher’s release point, trying to adjust is a time-consuming trial-and-error experiment. Coach: Try to spike the seam and do this at release. Pitcher: How’d that look? Coach: Better...maybe? Did you keep your fingers to the side or on top? Pitcher: I don’t know. Coach: OK, well, try that out on the mound next game and see what happens. That’s why professional organizations have invested heavily in that technology. As recently as 2016, then-Minnesota Twins closer Glen Perkins talked about his process of trying to tweak his slider grip where he simply threw it a few times in the bullpen, felt like it moved better north-south, and then threw it that night in a game. No data. No numbers. All feel. The next offseason following Perkins’ slider tweak, journeyman reliever Craig Breslow tried to rejuvenate this career with the help of a Rapsodo device, which earned him a contract with the Minnesota Twins. That spring, the Twins bought one of their own and tried it out on their spring training backfields. Now they have them everywhere. You can choose to approach player development without that information of course, but it is an analog approach in a digital world. In just limited exposure to the machines, the value Rapsodo data can provide in analyzing breaking ball was clear to see. In the next post, we will discuss how fastballs can be optimized under the power provided by the pitch-tracking tech. Click here to view the article

For a refresh on that season, please read Reusse's 1981/2016 comparison column and be sad times two.

To elaborate on the LaVelle comment -- the media throng were all enjoying an evening adult beverage in Fort Myers this spring. His remarks were good-natured and, to me, reflect a lot about how minor visual changes are perceived. I'm sure there are multiple readers that saw that and said "so what?" And that's true. What if he made that change but continued to roll his top hand? Or what if he made the separation at his stride but continued to have an armsy swing? He might not be producing at the current pace he is. To me, seeing that change in the spring was indicative of him trying to move forward, trying something different. There is a lot that goes into a swing and a player's offensive performance -- gaining strength, not being injured, consistent playing time, etc -- but these minor mechanical adjustments can be critical in putting everything together.

It's all related really. Previously we see that Buxton used his arms more independently in the swing, casting a bit. Now it's a more connected turn of the arms and then straight through with the bat instead of rotating right after contact.

i wouldn't say i'm a fan as much as i would say i fully lived hard through that pop culture phenomenon and i don't have any fresh references.

it makes me happy when people get the simpsons references.

Should put a disclaimer on that: When he puts the ball in the air, he is hitting the ball further. 2016: 279 feet 2017: 283 feet 2018: 280 feet 2019: 303 feet

He's actually swinging through about the same amount of breaking balls down/away this year. The bigger difference is that he's not getting to two-strike counts as frequently because he is hitting pitches middle-in earlier in the count, as you mentioned. In limited time last year he was 1-for-11 on the first pitch (.091). This year he's 11-for-24 (.458). Last year he finished ABs in hitter's counts in just 22% of his total plate appearances. This year he's finished ABs in favorable counts in 32% of his plate appearances. Likewise, 56% of his plate appearances last year went to 2-strike counts. This year it's down to 43%.

There’s something amazing about Byron Buxton at the plate this season. Data confirms your suspicions that Buxton is indeed hitting the ball harder, further and higher on a consistent basis than ever before. By hitting the ball harder, further and higher than ever before, he is the proud owner of a juicy .275/.335/.514 line while striking out in a career-low 23 percent of plate appearances through 43 games. In terms of OPS, he’s the third-best hitter among center fielders behind only Mike Trout and George Springer. This is a new-look Buxton even if you aren’t sure what exactly looks new. When Buxton was using the leg kick, you could see the leg kick. When he stopped using the leg kick, you could clearly see he was no longer using the leg kick. It was an obvious distinction. However, there are possibly no more significant changes that Buxton has made to his swing than the changes he made for 2019. Allow me to explain.This spring, as Buxton strolled into camp with a new swing, he proudly proclaimed -- channeling his inner Frank Sinatra -- that he did it his way. “It’s my swing, my thought process, my thinking, everything with my swing now is me,” he told Dan Hayes of The Athletic. “I didn’t go to no hitting coach, I didn’t go work out with nobody, I worked out by myself, I hit by myself and that’s where it’s going to stay.” Whether Buxton made all the changes alone, applied some direction from James Rowson and other coaches on staff, had secretly hired a team of tech nerds to design an algorithm that would lead to the world’s most optimal mechanics, or has a magic hitting cow that whispers tips from outside the cage, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Buxton has truly unlocked something. There’s undoubtedly been an ebb and flow surrounding Byron Buxton and whether he has FOUND IT offensively dating back to the end of 2016 when he hit 9 home runs in September after returning with a massive leg kick in his swing. (That’s good!) But, while still using the leg kick, he lost whatever IT was in early 2017. (That’s bad.) But then he found IT again later that season after much soul-searching and Molitor prodding to ditch the leg kick. (That’s good.) Then it turns out he broke a big toe, hurt his wrist and everything else in 2018 and couldn’t hit water falling out of a boat. (Can I go now?) Based on that track record, proclaiming that he has FOUND IT is going to be met with skepticism. While that is a natural human emotion, what follows is granular swing biomechanics that should confirm that Byron Buxton has indeed FOUND IT again -- and possibly for good this time. As previously mentioned, these changes are not as obvious as his leg kick-no leg kick on again/off-again Ross-and-Rachel relationship. That said, there are several adaptations in Buxton’s swing that stand out as significant drivers for his early season statistical success. The first driver was creating a stretch point in his swing prior to the launch. As noted this spring, Buxton adjusted his mechanics to create separation from his top half and lower half. Previously Buxton would step and swing in one motion. It was a constant drift forward which denied him time to recognize a pitch as well as build tension. Now, when he steps forward, his hands go back and hold for a nanosecond. This creates resistance. This move helps reduce slack in his midsection, giving him a rubber band effect between his hands and his front leg. There’s stored tension in his abdomen at his launch point that helps connect the energy in his lower and upper half. Look at Buxton at the launch point last year versus this year: Not long after I posted this video in March, the Star Tribune’s Lavelle Neal scoffed at me in a Fort Myers bar. There’s no way that does much of anything he told me. Beside, he said, you can’t even see much of a difference. It’s hard to argue with the Mayor of Fort Myers but I did my best explaining why that was important. True, this may seem like a minor change but the ability to generate power is contingent on utilizing all the muscles. Buxton added mass this offseason but that alone won’t create pop if the swing is not optimized. This year, by gaining that tension point, he has applied more force which has led to an increase in his exit velocity from 86.8 to 92.4. In his overall pool of batted balls, in 2018, 29 percent of his balls in play were hit 95+ mph compared to 46 percent so far this year. The second driver relates to his ability to lift the ball. In 2018 Buxton had an average launch angle of 10.7 degrees. With a below average launch angle, it is no surprise that he maintained a ground ball rate of 49 percent. Since the beginning of his major league career, Buxton has had a ground ball rate of over 40 percent each season. If he were to take steps forward in his career and put up numbers that were more super unicorn of him, he would need to hit the ball hard in the air. So far this year, he has had a ground ball rate of under 30 percent. Over the last few years, as more players have tried to change their swings to join the fly ball revolution, the common refrain from ball guy announcers is that those players are DROPPING THEIR BACK SHOULDERS and using LAUNCH ANGLE SWINGS. To be sure, there’s no such thing as a LAUNCH ANGLE SWING at least no more than there is a VELOCITY THROW for pitcher. So what can players do to increase their aerial assault without being accused of swinging for the fences? One of the biggest factors in creating more elevation for Buxton has been his ability to keep from rolling his top hand right after contact. If you watch his 2018 swing, you will often see patterns that resemble a tennis swing that imparts top spin on the ball as his wrists prematurely roll over. Comparatively this year’s swing he is over exaggerating the follow through to keep his wrists from breaking -- Buxton gets extension in his swing as he moves the bat forward at the pitcher rather than pulling around immediately. Download attachment: unnamed.gif This is another angle showing how well he keeps from rolling: Download attachment: 2019-05-20_0-40-14.gif The results have been that Buxton has hit more balls in the air this year (17 degree launch angle coupled with just a 26 percent ground ball rate). Download attachment: Buxton Grounders.png There’s another driver that has also allowed Buxton to remain flexible in his swing and that is creating space. Download attachment: Buxton Front Arm.png In 2018 Buxton demonstrated the tendency to keep his lead arm close to his chest at contact, leaving little space and, with it, lost some adjustability. Pitchers would frequently blow Buxton up with velocity on the inner third with the center fielder unable to get the barrel to the part of the zone once he started his swing. However, if you start with spacing, hitters are more able to adapt to pitches in other areas of the zone. Now, rotating his shoulders and arms as one big triangle, Buxton has spacing between his chest. This provides a better connected swing that goes beyond just arms and hands, an ability to adjust as well as allows the barrel to stay on plane longer, according to the Twins’ minor league hitting coordinator Pete Fatse. Download attachment: 2019-04-18_13-43-33.gif In summation, Buxton is creating more power by creating a stretch point and harnessing tension in his midsection. He’s generating more line drives and fly balls but extending his swing through the contact point and not rolling over. And last, he’s added spacing in his swing that gives him some adjustability to conquer either side of the plate. Buxton’s career has been a strange one. He is supremely talented but has not established a long enough stretch of performing at the elite level to match his prospect status. If he can stay healthy and avoid crashing into too many walls or teammates, Byron Buxton of 2019 could finally live up to everyone’s expectation. Click here to view the article

high highs and low lows. https://twitter.com/ParkerHageman/status/1117087161889767424

my favorite storyline of perez's cutter is that his agent is claiming adding the pitch was wholly his idea and not the Twins. here he is jumping into aaron gleeman's thread regarding the pitch's inception: it takes a village to raise a new pitch. there's probably credit to go around. odorizzi helped him tweak the grip. the twins staff -- wes and jeremy hefner -- undoubtedly provided the data and video to help perfect it. and perez committed to it. in late march it was apparent that this pitch was going to be special. i really liked watching how hanley ramirez responded to it back in the dugout after chasing one up in the zone. glen perkins jumped in and noted that ramirez is telling the bench that the pitch just spun and the swing, which was well under it, looked as if he was expecting a slider drop. https://twitter.com/ParkerHageman/status/1125820818821406722 what it accomplishes is now perez has a pitch that stays in the zone (unlike his slider) so now hitters have to be prepared to defend both sides of the plate whereas before righties could cheat away and spit on things breaking in. one thing that will be interesting to see is when/if perez starts seeing hitters multiple times in the season if they will start to adjust to that pitch (expecting it to maintain up instead of biting like a slider).

Hey! One-seam fastball grip. No wonder he's getting that good sink action -- 60% ground ball rate so far.

The topic of food concessions was on a Planet Money podcast last November. The show focused on the Falcons and how they were doing going the other direction with it, but the show also touched upon why concession pricing in general is so outrageous. Essentially, the Delaware North's of the world, who the Twins contract with to provide concessions, will set the initial cost really high across the board (which is why some products cost the same whether you are at Yankee Stadium or Target Field where the fan base income is very different). The Falcon's went a different direction.

Just to clarify, what I wrote was "Almost all of them are concentrating on driving off the rubber from their heel rather than their toe." Again, Romero did not come up in the conversation with Wes. The pattern, to me, seems to be the guys who had low velos were pushed toward concentrating on the heel. Romero might not have that particular issue. It's possible that they are working on direction and some heel work. The other point I need to emphasize is that it's not an easy thing. Gibson talked about how it took him not only his 2017 spring training but also the majority of that season to get 100% comfortable with the new movements. It's possible he's working on it and just misfiring a bit. Bottom line is I don't know. It would be good to have a beat writer follow up on that.

House's big contribution to pitching (one of, anyways) is that he had Ryan land on the ball of his front foot instead of his heel. They did the same with Randy Johnson.

The drive portion of the mechanics doesn't really effect movement of a pitch. That's more from the grip/release/angle. It can alter the location (as mentioned with Gibson). So like a guy like Reed who fires across his body may have his location shift a bit.

Not sure if this is meant as snark or not but in my conversation with Wes, we did not discuss Romero at that time. Not sure if he received the full treatment or not. Some players, like Trevor May, were told they work well on their back foot already and were given other things to work on this spring.

Ask any Twins pitcher what they are working on this spring and you will get a similar answer: Almost all of them are concentrating on driving off the rubber from their heel rather than their toe. As an example: After one outing Jose Berrios said that he was focused on driving from his full foot, feeling his weight sink into his heel before exploding toward home plate. Berrios, whose fastball averaged just under 94 mph in 2018, was flirting constantly with 95-96 during this particular spring start. All around the clubhouse there are pitchers saying the same thing as Berrios. Kyle Gibson. Jake Odorizzi. Martin Perez. Stephen Gonsalves. Chase De Jong. Everyone is turning heel. This is one of the immediate effects of hiring Wes Johnson as the new pitching coach.In some regard Johnson’s emphasis on getting into the heel feels like this year’s thing. When Neil Allen first arrived with the Twins as the new pitching coach in 2015, he spent all spring convincing pitchers they needed to throw more changeups. Twins pitchers talked about the importance of throwing changeups to same-sided hitters or throwing them back-to-back. More changeups was Allen’s thing. How did that work out? The team’s changeup usage rate rose a bit but the results didn’t follow suit. Through Allen’s tenure, the Twins held a 4.58 staff ERA, 26th out of the 30 clubs. Johnson’s message, however, is one that concerns a pitcher’s entire foundation. Embracing it can be career-changing. When you ask him to elaborate on what makes this seemingly minor portion of the entire delivery such a critical component, Wes Johnson’s face lights up and he goes into his full biomechanical spiel. “We know that hip speed is a function of velocity and command as well,” Johnson begins in his upbeat southern accent. “And hip speed is generated through your glutes and we’re just trying to activate the glute medius. We’re trying to get the glute med to activate first instead of your quadricep because when a guy’s quadricep activates first, his hip speed goes down. So we’re just trying to activate the glute to get the hips to rotate faster to get command and-or velocity, whichever one.” If that was too technical, Kyle Gibson later offered an abridged explanation: “The goal is to use the big muscles in your legs.” It’s fairly basic. Pitchers who drive off of their toes first are not maximizing their velocity potential. Johnson admits that the concept isn’t for pitchers to actually drive off their heel, it’s to get them over the middle of their foot more. Cueing them to over-exaggerate and focus on the heel puts them in better position. When pitchers drive off their toes, they not only leave some MPHs on the table, they tend to have more inconsistent direction to home plate, wreaking havoc on their command as well. His reputation as a collegiate pitching coach is sterling and that was built on a velocity increase system he created. While with Dallas Baptist University, Johnson would take pitchers who were throwing in the upper 80s and have them reaching mid-90s within a couple of years. It happened again at Mississippi State and again at Arkansas. Johnson found that when more emphasis was placed on the lower half, velocity followed. Just like he did with his college athletes, when he was first hired by the Twins, Johnson said he spent days studying his pitchers to see who could use some adjustments. “I watched too much video. My wife is probably wondering what I was doing all offseason,” he says with a laugh. But the preparation from him and the rest of the Twins’ coaching staff allowed Johnson to have conversations with pitchers when they reported. “Wes has come in and this is his first spring training in professional baseball. I don’t take that lightly, I don’t think anybody should,” remarked manager Rocco Baldelli. “That is not the easiest of tasks to just come in and take control, as the pitching coach, of your staff. He put in a ton of work this offseason to lay the groundwork to be able to come in here and not just function but do some really nice things.” Being able to function as the new pitching coach is a bit easier when one of the veteran leaders of the staff is a big proponent of Johnson’s practices. Gibson is very familiar with these principles. Before the 2017 season, Gibson spent time at the Florida Baseball Ranch, retooling his mechanics with owner Randy Sullivan. Johnson, who had spent years working with Sullivan and other baseball outsiders, had a hand in creating the Durathro system which Gibson used to overhaul his arm action. But it was changing his lower half movements that sparked something for the right-hander, notably using Johnson’s cue of driving off his heel versus his toe. “I stepped across my body more in 2015 and 2016 and the only way you step across your body is by going off your toe,” says Gibson. “I wasn’t working on my direction when I was going through the Florida Baseball Ranch [arm] stuff but as soon as you get on your heel, and push off your heel, your direction to home plate gets more straight.” Like Johnson, Gibson is an avid film-watcher. He says he can quickly spot the flaws in himself and others from shots on the center field camera. “TV is a pretty good angle because you can see where a guy’s knee is,” Gibson says. “As soon as your knee gets over your toe, you’re pushing off your toe more. If your butt sits back and your toe stays behind your knee then obviously the kinetic chain is saying that you are more into your glute, more into your backside.” Gibson transformed his mechanics, engaging his lower half more, activating those “big muscles” in his legs. Gibson unlocked some additional heat but he also felt like he was able to locate all of his pitches better as he drove toward home plate compared to when he was stepping across his body. By the second half of 2017, when the new arm path and lower-half mechanics began to feel natural for Gibson, his career turned a corner. His body direction is what helped him against left-handed opponents in 2018. Previously he rarely went inside to lefties. From 2013 through 2016, he threw on the inner-third of the zone to left-handers just 30% of the time, opting to stay on the outer-third (49%). In 2018, no longer cutting himself off mechanically, Gibson attacked inside to lefties (48%) to great success. Johnson said coming into camp, he and assistant pitching coach Jeremy Hefner had spent endless hours creating individual plans for the entire staff at the major-league level. He knew that if he presented video evidence and data, players would respond favorably to the adjustments. “We talk to them about the biomechanics side of it and what you’re seeing, and tell them why you are doing something which, to me, is the biggest factor because if we’re just coming in and saying ‘you gotta stay on your heel longer’ that’s crazy,” says Johnson. “We need to tell them why we are doing it and the success rate and show them video and show them guys who have had success doing it.” Gibson’s success helped the conversation move forward with other players. He convinced Jake Odorizzi to visit the Florida Baseball Ranch this offseason. Kohl Stewart also made a visit. There’s also Martin Perez, who witnessed a spike in velocity at the end of 2018. Johnson said the message they gave Perez was to get in his heel more and move more athletically. His velocity has been consistently up at 95-97 all spring. In addition to established pitchers like Gibson and Perez, Johnson and Hefner want to infuse the concept to pitchers who are currently on the fringe, hoping to stick in the big leagues, such as Chase De Jong. The 25-year-old De Jong has 47 major-league innings to his name. A former second-round draft pick, De Jong’s career has stalled at the Triple-A level. He doesn’t possess the high velocity normally seen by modern pitchers – averaging sub-90 on his four-seamer – and he has walked a few too many hitters (19 batters in 47 innings). Still, De Jong represents an arm the Twins would like to maximize. “They showed me in the video they said, hey, you’re doing this and it’s causing this,” De Jong explains. “[staying on the heel] is the minor mechanical critique he’s made with me. I feel like it’s helped me stay strong on my backside and, directionally, it has helped with my lines tremendously.” Johnson agreed with De Jong’s assessment. “I look at [De Jong] and you look at that and when he’s been really good it’s his direction,” says Johnson. “He may have seen a one mile an hour tick in velocity so it wasn’t a ton for him but his direction and command was really good.” “Sometimes in pitching you can chase symptoms,” De Jong acknowledges. “You’re leaking out front, you’re doing this, you’re doing that, but when you actually get to the root of the problem and address that and just focus on that, the other stuff fixes because that’s what was causing it.” Similar to what Gibson went through in 2017, De Jong recognizes that implementing a new feel into his mechanics isn’t something that will produce results overnight. After all, his first foray this spring was rough. De Jong will start the 2019 season in Rochester, hoping to lock in the new movement patterns and eventually contribute with the Twins this summer. He will be joined at the Twins’ top affiliate with Stephen Gonsalves, another pitcher trying to incorporate Johnson’s cues. Johnson uses Gonsalves as an example of how the process isn’t a straight line. In one outing this spring Gonsalves saw hit velocity tick upward. In the next, it went back down. “You wish that it happened overnight but it doesn’t. It’s a process,” admits Johnson. “So you’ll see a bit of that rollercoaster wave action with those guys where you’ll see a little spike in velocity and then the next time it will flatten out, then spike but it’s because they are learning how to do it.” And that is Johnson’s biggest point: It’s a process. There is no guarantee of immediate success with any of the pitchers. While Gibson may have been able to advance his career through these methods, it did take him a little over half a season to feel comfortable. Many of the pitchers attempting to incorporate the new biomechanics may not see the consistent results for another season or two. That being said, if Johnson’s collegiate track record is any indication, the Twins should see that velo clout soon enough. Click here to view the article