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Parker Hageman

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  10. Parker Hageman
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]3807[/ATTACH]Let’s just say Brian Dozier has had a slow start to his 2013 season.
     
    Repping a less than stellar.189/.279/.243 batting line through his first 44 plate appearances, the Twins’ second baseman has been extremely inoffensive and has statistically continued where he left off during following his demotion in August of last year. Despite this slow beginning, there is reasons to not lose hope that Dozier’s career will fall into a no-hit middle infielder that has plagued the Twins for the better part of the new millennium.
     
    The first encouraging sign from Dozier is that he is (1) sporting a much improved strikeout-to-walk ratio.
     
    This is supremely important to any future success for the middle infielder. As a minor leaguer, Dozier owned a decent 1.2 strikeouts-to-walks ratio – meaning he drew nearly as many walks as he did strikeout. When he was promoted to the majors last year, that ability to hone the zone dissipated. He took just 16 walks in 340 plate appearances while striking out 58 times - or a 3.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio – a true indicator that he was not completely comfortable at the major league level. But, through 13 games this year, he’s had a much improved walk rate and has a 1.8 strikeout-to-walk ratio, closer mirroring his minor league track record.
     
    Those few free passes in 2012 resulted in a 4.7% walk rate which placed him in the bottom third in that category. Much of that derived from overextending the strike zone (35% out-of-zone swing rate compared to the 30% league average) and having an overall overzealous approach at the plate. Again, in the small sampling this year, he’s increased his walk rate to a significantly improved 11.4% - the fifth-highest among qualified second basemen.
     
    The story has been slightly different for Dozier in 2013. He has trimmed his swing zone down to a more manageable area (chasing just 26% of out-of-zone pitches) and has been able to fight off a high number pitches to extend his at bats. So far this year, he’s 39% of his strikes have originated from foul balls while the rest of the league’s average is 27%.
     
    Consider this: When Ron Gardenhire put him in the lead-off spot after Darin Mastroianni was pushed to the DL on Tuesday, Dozier’s first at bat against the Angels’ Jason Vargas consisted of him fouling off five fastballs – working the left-hander over for ten pitches total. While the at bat resulted in an out, Dozier got Vargas’s pitch count rising from the get-go. In the fourth inning, he got enough of Vargas’s 0-2 down-and-dirty curve in order to see a fastball the next pitch which he drilled into right field for a base hit.
     
    Fouling off pitches is not a repeatable skill, per se, but it has aided him in prolonging his at bats which has led to a higher frequency of walks. The end game -- more walks and high on-base percentage -- bodes very well for Dozier’s contributions for the rest of the season.
     
    The second reason Dozier is rather than attempting to pull every pitch, he’s (2) going the other way and back up the middle.
     
    Check out his breakdown of batted balls by direction hit from last year to this year:
     
    [TABLE=align: center]

    [TD=colspan: 4]Dozier’s Batted Ball By Location[/TD]



    [/TD][TD]Pulled

    Center
    Opposite


    2012
    40%
    41%
    19%


    2013
    26%
    37%
    37%

    [/TABLE] 
    Without question, Dozier is going the other way with the pitches that are on the outer-half of the strike zone rather than trying to yank everything under the sun. As I outlined at Twins Daily last year, opponents recognized this tendency and lambasted him with fastball away and an abundance of sliders. I concluded that analysis by writing:

    “Specifically for Dozier, offensive progress means trying to re-calibrate his swing zone. If pitchers are going to continue to pound away, make sure you start going with that pitch instead of turning it over (CC: Danny Valencia). If they are trying to get you to fish, try to wait for something in the zone (which is always easier said than done). Being a successful everyday contributor means being able to make adjustments quickly.”
     
     
    As mentioned above, Dozier’s keying in on pitches in the zone better. Additionally, what we see out of him is a much better ability to go with the pitch rather than turn on everything. He is allowing the ball to travel deeper into the zone before contact. As such, he keeps his weight back well and that helps drive the ball to center and opposite field.
     
    Here’s a still comparison of the point of impact and his improved mechanical balance. The first two images are his swings in 2013. Notice how he has a firm front side and keeps his weight back on these pitches middle-up and middle-away:
     
    http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/theeight_1366379669_Dozier_1.PNG
     
     
    http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Dozier_2.PNG
     
    There are examples of swings that Dozier displayed in spring training, in which I advised to watch for this year. While the results have been not been there, the form is much better.
     
    Compare those two examples to two from 2012. Both instances came against left-handed pitches, both locations were away and both wound up grounders to the left side. In both cases, Dozier’s weight gets out in front of him as he reaches for – and pulls – both pitches thrown on the outer-half of the zone. Notice, too, that his front foot comes unglued in the samples. This is creating a less than solid base to swing from.
     
    http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Dozier_3.PNG
     
     
    http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Dozier_4.PNG
     
    Dozier has a much more solid fundamental approach at the plate this season - something that was not present a year ago. With a more discriminating eye at the plate and now functional mechanics in place to drive the ball to all areas of the ballpark, his numbers should steadily improve as the season progresses.
  24. Parker Hageman
    Vance Worley is poised for his second unofficial start for the Minnesota Twins today.
     
    Compared to the other recent additions to the rotation, the 25-year-old right-hander’s first outing in the Grapefruit League was very positive. He worked two innings, allowed a pair of hits but didn’t allow any runs. Feedback from his new manager was good.
     
    “I like him. He looks like a gunslinger with that windup,” Ron Gardenhire told reporters following the team’s 5-4 victory over the Pirates. “It looks like he’s ready to draw a pistol. I always liked guys like that.”
     
    Of course, first impressions are sort of Worley’s thing. It is meeting people a second and third time that the newest member of the team needs to work on, as you will see.
     
    Heading into the 2012 season Worley grew concerned that the rest of the league was going to catch on to his sinker, a pitch that had been wildly successful for him in 2011 when he finished 11-3 with a 3.01 ERA in 131.2 innings and took third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
     
    “I need to develop a change-up this spring so I can have it ready for this season,” Worley toldYahoo.com’s Dave Brown, “The whole league knows I throw a sinker now, and my cutter is OK; it can be good at times. But definitely I need a third pitch.”
     
    True to his word, Worley set out to install the change as his third pitch. Up to that point in his career, his version of the change was the standard “circle” grip, named such because when the pitcher’s thumb and index finger make the “OK” symbol and the ball is thrown with the aid of the three remaining fingers. Still, the results on the pitch in 2011 were lackluster. Because he threw this change at a high velocity (averaging 84.7 mph according to Fangraphs.com) he had little separation between that and his sinker and cutter (thrown on average at 90 mph). Opponents smacked the change around to the tune of a .309 average.
     
    Even coming off his solid rookie campaign, Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee reiterated the need for Worley to add an additional pitch. “Hitters will adjust after seeing him,” he told the media. “He has to adjust, too.”
     
    Worley had the good fortune of being employed alongside one of the best pitchers in the game, Roy Halladay. Just a few years prior, Halladay learned a new change-up grip that helped win him the National League Cy Young Away in 2010. Rather than the circle grip he split his ring and middle fingers out wide on what would have been a prototypical two-seam fastball grip, a less wide version of the split-finger fastball. What the former Cy Young winner did was develop a “split-change” that had heavy sink and enough speed variation to make it extremely effective.
     
    In camp in 2012, Worley hoped to come away with the new version of his change-up but despite the fact he had shaved a tad off of the velocity (down to 83 mph), he still did not feel comfortable throwing it frequently throughout the year.
     
    Nevertheless, Worley had success despite not missing bats was due to his deceptive delivery andoutstanding movement on his sinker/two-seamer. He froze opponents regularly, ringing up a baseball-high 57% of his strikeouts looking. What’s more is that umpires (with some help from his catcher) gave him nearly 10% of his pitches not swung at and thrown OUTSIDE of the strike zone a strike. That’s well above the league average of 7%.
     
    It appears, at least judging by the statistics, that opponents figured out not to be fooled as much by the movement or deceptive delivery the second or third time around.
     
    Worley’s splits may show signs of how he was affected by his shallow arsenal. According to Baseball-Reference.com’s pitching splits, Worley labored as the lineup continued to turnover in 2012. After the first time through the order, the spectacled one held the opposition to a 620 OPS coupled with a 22% strikeout rate. This success would slide significantly as the game progressed. The second time through the OPS increased to 863 while his strikeout rate dropped to 17%. The third time around, the floodgates would open as his OPS allowed spiked to 971 while his strikeout rate came in at 13%.
     
    With a lack of a solid third pitch, was the shifting numbers a result of opponents zeroing in on his sinker and cutter? While those segmentations are small sample sizes, the OPS allowed in the second and third time through the order were noticeably higher than the league average.
     
    As Worley said prior to the 2012 season, he was in need of an additional pitch. He threw a solid cutter, one that had the highest percentage of swing-and-misses among his repertoire last season, but that has been below average among all pitch types in that department.
     
    There’s probably some hesitation as to why Worley had mistrust in his change. It is a “feel” pitch and, given the fact that he allowed three of the 12 home runs surrendered on the pitch while throwing it less than 8% of the time. Look at his intended location versus his actual location for this change when facing Pittsburgh’s Pedro Alverez:
     

    http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/theeight_1362146832_Worley_Spot1.PNG 
     
    http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Worley_Result1.PNG


     
    Yes. That ball went way far, far away. The reason was that instead of down and away as desired, this slow mover went middle-in and allowed Alverez to nearly send that pitch back to the other side of the state of Pennsylvania.
     
    If a pitcher does not have confidence to hit his spots consistently, that pitcher may withhold throwing that pitch. And it appears that Worley still does not have faith in that offering either. “My changeup is usually just terrible all around, all the time,” Worley told reporters after his first outing this spring. “So if I can not use it, I won’t use it.”
     
    True, Worley only faced eight batters so he did not have the lineup turn on him and likely did not need to show them anything else. Yet switching to the American League, where, thanks to the DH, lineups are more robust, it should accelerate the need to refine that pitch. If he is able to hone that pitch, he may have better success against his opponent that second and third time through the order in 2013.
  25. Parker Hageman
    Ryan Pressly’s odds of making the bullpen when the Minnesota Twins break camp in April appear somewhere between slim and none.
     
    On a liberal guess, there are likely three spots open and two of those may already belong to Alex Burnett and Anthony Swarzak. The remaining vacancy? That’s competition between a Twins’ bullpen incumbent in Casey Fein, baseball’s relief innings leader last season in Josh Roenicke, and two former major leaguers trying to re-establish their careers in Rich Harden and Rafael Perez. So where does that leave a 24-year-old Rule 5 draft pick who has fewer than 30 innings of experience above Double-A? Probably with a one-way ticket back to Pawtucket with all the clam chowder he can eat waiting for him.
     
    Because of the Rule 5 draft’s rules, if Pressly is not placed on the 25-man roster, he must be offered back to Boston. However, there is another route Pressly could go to remain within the Twins’ system and that is if the team pulls a trade similar to the one that landed them Scott Diamond from the Braves. In order to do so, the Twins will need to place him through the waivers, exposing him to all the MLB teams, prior to negotiating a trade with the Red Sox.
     
    Would Pressly be worth it?
     
    There are plenty of people within the organization who firmly believe in his capabilities as a major league contributor. When the Twins selected him in early December out of the Red Sox organization, plenty of officials were already infatuated with his stuff. The Twins director of scouting Vern Followell, who followed Pressly since high school, said that he envisioned the right-hander to be a solid back-of-the-bullpen arm.
     
     
    Early in camp, manager Ron Gardenhire was also keen on the youngster, noting that while Pressly was a bit erratic, he was impressed by his fastball. What’s more is that Pressly was facing the meat of the big club’s order during his live BP sessions including Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Josh Willingham, and Trevor Plouffe.
     
    Pressly works with a three pitch repertoire that is comprised of a mid-90s two-seam fastball, exquisite tilt on his curve and a good changeup. With those three pitches, the Sox had designs of making him a starter. While he did well with his secondary offerings, Pressly’s fastball often got him into trouble and he wound up with a high number of free passes issued.
     
    What is interesting about Pressly is that he make opposite handed hitters – lefties – miss more often than same-sided ones. This is not usually true as right-handed pitchers are much better at striking out right-handed batter thanks to the ability to hide the ball better and spin pitches away from their swing. Given the
    , one would assume he would thrive against righties but that has not been the case. Still, in 2012 – his first year in the bullpen – Pressly struck out 14% of right-handed batters faced but yielded a 25% strike out mark against lefties thanks to a strong running fastball and changeup combination. Take a look at this clip of his changeup thrown to Justin Morneau this week: 
    http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/theeight_1361543132_Pressly.gif
     
    (Video courtesy of MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger)
    According to the StarTribune’s Phil Miller, this incited the Twins first baseman to describe the pitch as “nasty” afterwards. Pressly’s changeup has a strong bite down and away from the left-handed swing. Based on this action, one can easily conclude how he is able to achieve such a high percentage of strikeouts against the opposite hand.
     
    Competition may ultimately keep Pressly out of the hunt for the final bullpen spot but his strengths as a reliever should not go unnoticed this spring. Keep an eye on his ability to command his fastball. If he impresses enough, he may be given an opportunity to remain with the organization.
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