Parker Hageman

Sick "I go into the Twins clubhouse" brag.

On June 14, Byron Buxton made perhaps the most widely anticipated Minnesota Twins debut since Joe Mauer arrived in 2004. While everyone acknowledges that players typically struggle in their first exposure to baseball’s best competition, deep down, what everyone was really asking themselves is if Buxton will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer or a regular ol’ Hall of Famer. As is his penchant, Buxton struggled offensively over his eleven games with the Twins. More disheartening, yet another injury has sidelined him for an extended period of time – something that has become alarmingly frequent over his career. He has all the talent in the world but will he ever be healthy enough to showcase it this season?Age: 21 2015 Stats (AA/MLB): .270/.336/.460 (.795), 8-2B, 13-3B, 6-HR, 28/68 BB/K ETA: 2015 2015 Preseason Ranking: 1 What's To Like The speed is absolutely breathtaking. While a mashed tater hit a country mile gives one pause as it clears the fence and drops into the sea of waiting arms, there is nothing that compares to when a player with top-flight speed slashes one into the gap and is off to the races. Buxton’s first major league hit, a stand-up triple no less, proved that point. In the field, Buxton closes faster than a Canadian Target. According to ESPN/TruMedia, in just under 100 innings in center, Buxton already recorded 10 good fielding plays including this absolute dart at 93 miles per hour (per StatCast) to nail Melky Cabrera at home: In short, Buxton can score runs and he can take them away. What's Left To Work On Terry Ryan was quick to point out that Buxton was not a finished product when he was called up to Minnesota. “I would have liked to keep Buxton down (at Chattanooga) for more at-bats,” Ryan told the Pioneer Press a week prior to Buxton’s thumb injury. “But it wasn’t meant to be, so here he is.” In Chattanooga, shortly after Buxton’s big league debut manager Doug Mientkiewicz exercised similar caution regarding his promotion in a chat with FOX Sport’s Ken Rosenthal. “I don’t think he’s completely ready,” Mientkiewicz told the bow-tied baseball writer. “Well, part of me says yes, and part of me says no.” Previously, the Looksouts manager was more emphatic about what he wanted for Buxton’s immediate future. “I would like to see him here the whole year, and that has nothing to do with me as a manager,” Mienkiewicz told the Times Free Press in early May, “I want to see him have success, and too many times in baseball and in general today, these kids have a good two weeks and they move them. They are going to play a long time, so let them build that huge snowball of confidence to where nothing can deter them once they struggle again.” Mientkiewicz had seen what others had not first-hand – a professional-grade slider presented a challenge to the game’s top prospect. However, in the Southern League, that quality of pitch is harder to find; the major league level would be another story. It became keenly obviously after watching pitchers deploy sliders at a steady clip that Buxton was not fully prepared for the competition. The reports on Buxton is that he has speed bumps at the introductory point at each level. In Double-A this year, his first series began with nine strikeouts over four games. He adjusted and struck out in just 42 plate appearances over the last 54 games. "I feel pretty good," Buxton told The Chattanoogan in early June. "I've been taking better at-bats. I've been laying off pitches early in the year I was swinging at. It's put me in position to drive the ball into the gaps more." In addition to reducing the strikeouts, Buxton also slugged over .500 -- .505 to be exact – so the hope is, once healthy, he will adjust to pitching at the highest level of the game as well. What's Next Buxton’s thumb injury will cost him at least a month according to manager Paul Molitor. There may be some rehab time involved that will give him some opportunity to experience AAA pitching – a less electrifying brand of pitching than in the majors but loaded with arms that have major league experience and ability to locate pitches better than their lower level counterparts. Once he returns, his speed and glove will help stabilize the middle of the outfield and it will only be a matter of time before the speed and bat play a significant role at the top of the order as well. Click here to view the article

The Minnesota Twins bullpen maintains the worst strikeout rate in baseball but on Thursday afternoon, they made a move to improve that area. After sending Michael Tonkin down to Rochester after Wednesday’s game, they recalled hard-throwing Alex Meyer to replace him. Meyer, who the team received in the Denard Span trade with Washington as a starting pitching prospect, has rediscovered himself as a reliever in the Red Wings bullpen. Since the move Meyer has worked 17 innings in relief and has limited opponents to a .188 batting average while posting a solid 20-to-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio.The numbers all look convincing enough to believe that Meyer will play an effective role as a reliever going forward. When the Twins opted to send Meyer to the bullpen, he owned a 1.91 WHIP. While he was striking out plenty of batters, the others were either getting hits or walking. Velocity was never an issue for Meyer, who routinely reached 98 on the gun, but commanding pitches in the zone became the focus in 2015. Too often, Meyer’s fastball would fly down the middle or his breaking ball would hang. By the definition of the zone, they were strikes but they were also very hittable. According to the Durham Bulls broadcasters, their players said that compared to 2014, Meyer’s fastball was flat and that it lacked movement that it had the previous year. His command also was an issue since once he was behind in the count, they did not have to anticipate the knuckle-curve. This was reminiscent of Francisco Liriano’s plight from 2012 in which he was unable to locate his fastball and hitters simply laid off his nasty slider. In his final start, Meyer faced Durham and in just over four innings, the Bulls’ lineup knocked out seven hits of him. They waited patiently as he progressed deeper into counts by missing his spots and made him throw 109 pitches on his way to another early exit. Six days later, Rochester was in Durham, North Carolina and Meyer had moved to the bullpen. The move was made in order for Meyer to find consistency with his fastball and to attempt to regain his biting curve ball which had lost the break it had had a year ago. It also was a move to alleviate the pressure he applied to the relief corps each time his start was truncated. Meyer acknowledged that his arm slot had dropped since the end of 2014. Now in the pen, he told the Rochester broadcasting team that he would be concentrating on getting that release point back up to improve his movement. While some pitching prospects might find the switch troublesome on the ego, Meyer seemed to transition smoothly. In his first outing in relief, Meyer worked a clean 1-2-3 eighth inning against the Bulls -- the team which had less than a week earlier knocked him out of the starting rotation. Meyer worked quickly, getting strikes within the first two pitches of each at-bat. His fastball was humming at 96 and touching 97. He deployed a short break slider at significantly slower speed to register his first two outs and blasted a 97 mile per hour fastball above the zone for a swinging strike for the final out. READ: TD MIDSEASON TOP PROSPECT #10 - ALEX MEYER It was something that every bullpen needs -- someone to be able to throw late innings, bat-missing heat. When Rochester hosted a wrestling night at the beginning of June, all the relievers were given WWE wrestling persona’s that matched their demeanor on the mound. Meyer -- who is also called White Missile by his teammates -- was given The Undertaker, a wrestler who dominated in the ring and stole the souls of his opponents. The character fit well for Meyer’s new role. "While I'm in the bullpen, it's go get 'em,” Meyer told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. “Do whatever you have to do to get them out. I'm just trying to go out there and attack every batter. Get one batter out at a time and try not to over-analyze things any more than that." By the eye test, he looked comfortable going through the motions of a short outing. He leaned on his fastball but was sure to work his knuckle-curve in several times. In fact, he leaned on his curve too much in his first few relief outings. In his first outing, Meyer found himself up 0-1 in the count and shook off his catcher, Josmil Pinto, in order to throw back-to-back curves (both for balls and well off-target). He returned to his fastball and got two swinging strikes: one on the inner-half of the plate and another above the strike zone to finish the hitter off. In another outing, Meyer turned to his curve too frequently in two-strike situations. In four of the nine matchups against Lehigh Valley on June 2, he threw the bender three pitches in a row -- one of which, on a 3-2 count, facilitated a bases-loaded rally that Meyer somehow eventually wiggled out of. Although he appeared to overuse and misfire with the curve early, Meyer also tightened it up in his subsequent outings. The break appeared sharper and able to generate swinging strikes again. Upon his promotion, Red Wings beat writer Kevin Oklobzija highlighted Meyer’s improvement with the curve as a function why he was successful in the pen. During several broadcasts, announcers remarked how “confident” Meyer looked in his new role. His second appearance out of the bullpen on May 25 was all business. The Red Wings needed one out in the sixth inning and they called on a pitcher who could get a strikeout. Meyer threw four pitches -- all fastballs, all on the outer-half of the zone. While the umpire did not agree that the first one was a strike, the next three were placed in the same spot and were all deemed strikes. At that speed, in that location, the hitter stood little chance of doing anything. In his final outing before being recalled to Minnesota, Meyer worked effectively against the Pawtucket Red Sox. Despite allowing an inherited run to score, he was locating his 95+ fastball with precision and deploying a large breaking ball that buckled several knees. Rather than just throwing the curve when up in the count, Meyer also used it to get ahead of hitters and in even-count situations, making him and his fastball even more difficult to hit. Between the two pitches Meyer looked every bit the part of a major league shutdown reliever. In all Meyer has the raw stuff to be dominant at times. Most critical is working ahead of hitters. Even in relief, he showed signs of struggling to locate his fastball and was occasionally helped by opponents who would chase pitches. Click here to view the article

On this week's NO JUICE PODCAST, Dan Anderson and Parker Hageman review the week's Twins notes including Byron Buxton's slow start but impressive moments, Joe Mauer sudden power production and whether this is a sign of a rebound, evaluating prospects and new methods for improving your starting pitching. LISTEN UP.Other topics include trying to catch a foul ball, Father's Day, concerts at Lambeau Field, a new name for the Vikings stadium and baseball card reminiscing. Listen below, on iTunes or on Stitcher: NO JUICE PODCAST, EPISODE #60: PLUS AND MINUS Download attachment: NoJuice.jpg Click here to view the article

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/715018/cubs.gif +100000 for having this GIF ready.

According to the producers of "Back To The Future 2", when Marty McFly traveled into the future -- 30 years into the future to be exact -- he arrives to learn through a hologram billboard that the Chicago Cubs had just won the 2015 World Series. McFly is absolutely stunned. Flying cars, hoverboards, shoes that self-tie and the Cubs winning the World Series. All inconceivable. Where am I? Wait the Cubs won the World Series?! What YEAR is this? When filming of the movie began in 1989 the Cubs had been bad. Maybe they were lovable but they sure were losers. Over the previous ten years, they had managed just one season over .500. They hadn't won a World Series since 1908 and hadn't won the National League pennant since, to quote Steve Goodman, the year the US dropped the bomb on Japan. What may be even crazier is that based on the way the Cubs have been playing in the real 2015 and despite really wanting that hoverboard, it is entirely possible that winning the World Series might be the only prediction that comes true from "Back To The Future 2". For the Cubs the future is now and it is coming to Target Field for a three-game series.When new ownership shook up the organization, they hired Red Sox architect Theo Epstein away from Boston and initiated one of the largest youth movements since the baby boom. They are built for the long haul with a supremely talented group of younger players and are led on the field by one of the game's greatest modern tacticians: Joe Maddon. Here are some of the key young players you need to keep an eye on this weekend: Anthony Rizzo - 25 - 1B Ok, so he’s not young or recently called up. Now on his fifth season at the major league level he’s basically the team’s resident advisor. Under Epstein, the Red Sox drafted Rizzo out of high school but traded him to San Diego in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez. After Epstein moved to the Cubs, he re-acquired Rizzo in 2012 and he has entrenched himself at Wrigley as the starting first baseman and elder statesmen of the team. He gets on base a lot and plenty of that has to do with taking one for the team. Between this year and last, Rizzo has been hit by the pitch 29 times, the most in baseball. He has also shown some impressive power even if it is with some unorthodox swings. http://i.imgur.com/mAofukC.gif Kris Bryant - 23 - 3B Selected two spots in front of the Twins’ Kohl Stewart in the first round of the 2013 draft, Bryant quickly made a name for himself by hitting 43 home runs split between two levels in 2014. After the controversy over the service time when the Cubs kept him in Iowa for the first few weeks of the season, Bryant arrived and has hit .295/.398/.488 with eight home runs including this moonshot that traveled 477 feet according to StatCast -- tied for 5th furthest hit ball all year. http://i.imgur.com/wXcQurA.gif Kyle Schwarber - 22 - C/DH Selected by the Cubs in the first round of the 2014 draft, one slot ahead of the Twins’ Nick Gordon, this Indiana University product ascended Chicago’s system quickly. Loaded with power, Schwarber led the Southern League this year in slugging percentage just ahead of Minnesota’s Adam Brett Walker and Max Kepler. Reportedly a bat with power to all fields, the young catcher had that on display in Cleveland on Thursday when he hit his first major league home run. http://i.imgur.com/VGof5ZN.gif Addison Russell - 21 - 2B Acquired for Jeff Samardjiza trade with Oakland, Russell was a former 11th overall pick in 2012 -- the same year as Byron Buxton -- and was summoned to the bigs in late April. Russell has packed some punch with his bat and has been above average so far but his glove has been critically important at the up-the-middle slot. According to BillJamesOnline.net, Russell has been worth +8 runs in the field, the third best among all second basemen. http://i.imgur.com/EUMHMDz.gif For the Cubs, the future isn’t some distant, future-Delorean away, it’s now. That is why they are aggressively promoting their top talent in order to compete in the competitive NL Central. Fortunately for you, you can head on down to Target Field this weekend to watch some of these top athletes at work. Click here to view the article

When the Minnesota Twins signed the toolsy, projectable 16-year-old Max Kepler out of Germany, they received a player with promise and potential that was so raw he could be on the menu at a sushi joint. Kepler's development has been slow, particularly in the power department where his six-foot-four frame was forecast by Twins evaluators to hit the ball a long way, but judging from his 2015 season thus far he appears to have a solid future ahead.Age: 22 (DOB: 02/10/1993) 2015 Stats (A+/AA): 201 PA, .322/.383/.507 (891 OPS), 3 HR, 5 3B, 19 2B, 28/21 K/BB ETA: 2016 2014 Preseason Ranking: N/A -- 2015 Preseason Ranking: 12th Intro Kepler has been in the Twins system since 2009 when he signed for $800,000 as a teenager. It has been a slow climb for the outfielder/first baseman, who is now in his sixth season in the minors. Limited by an elbow injury in 2013, he witnessed his numbers tumble in Cedar Rapids. Kepler cited the fact that his top hand was weakened by the long rehabilitation process as a reason he struggled to drive the ball. That continued into the 2014 season at High-A in the Florida State League (a notoriously pitcher-friendly environment) as he started slow again but finished with a .307/.367/.451 line in his final 170 plate appearances after July 4th, signaling that his arm might finally be 100 percent again. What’s To Like This. That is an athletic swing that can generate plenty of hard hit balls. Since May 10, Kepler has compiled a .364/.430/.598 line in 149 plate appearances including 24 extra base hits and a well-balanced 16/17 walks-to-strikeouts ratio. "I've been seeing the ball pretty well," Kepler told MiLB.com's Robert Emrich recently. "I feel like I'm getting my foot down early, load and getting all that stuff out of the way, so I don't have much to think about; it's all coming fluid. All I have to do is see the ball, hit the ball, and it's working for me right now. While his power has not manifested in home runs, the gap power has resulted in an overall sluggng that is third in the Southern League behind Cubs' prospect Kyle Schwarber (who has since been promoted to the majors) and the Twins' powerhouse Adam Brett Walker. What’s Left To Work On Consistent production against left-handed pitching would serve him well. In 2011 he actually fared better against the sinister hurlers, hitting .351 in 45 plate appearances. When asked about his experience against lefties that season, Kepler told Hein News in a 2011 interview that "I always have the thought in the back of my head that lefty versus lefty is going to be tough. So I don’t know. Maybe I am more focused and stay more inside against lefties. But I seem to hit ‘em well.' But that was not always be the case. In 2013, perhaps because of the weakened arm strength, he hit just .117 against lefties, raising concerns that he might not be geared towards handling the better left-handed competition as he ascended the ranks. Nevertheless, that improved to .273 in 2014 and he is hitting at a robust .333 clip against them this year. "I think for some reason I've always thought that lefties are tougher to face and stuff, and I got rid of that thought this year," Kepler told Emrich last week. "It's just a ball coming from a different angle. I'm going to stick with that; it's working right now." Finding him a position in the field would be useful as well. Evaluators have said his outfield instincts have played well but with his arm strength he may be more suited for left field over right. He's spent the bulk of his time playing first base with Chattanooga this year which feels like a crowded pipeline at the major league level. What's Next? Rochester is the next logical step for the prospect as their outfield depth has been looted by the parent club and the first base position could use some help. Beyond this year is the real question. Provided Kepler can find a position, the Twins have few left-handed hitters in the system who can hit for power, making him a valuable commodity. Unfortunately there are two in Oswaldo Arcia (24) and Eddie Rosario (23) that qualify and are ahead of him on the depth chart, potentially blocking his path to Minnesota. Kepler's almost too athletic for first and lacks the home run power that should be associated with playing that position (oh, the Joe Mauer-laced irony). If he continues to hit like he has been, the Twins will need to make some serious decisions. Click here to view the article

Sick "I got a lot of work done" brag.

https://twitter.com/ParkerHageman/status/611619292111630336

RE: Bat speed & unluckiness. BaseballSavant.com tracks exit speeds. According to their leaderboard filter, Joe Mauer averages 89 MPH on the batted ball speed which is roughly league average (using the thumb eyeball test). He actually has a slightly better exit velocity than Joey Votto who is hitting .295/.396/.547 this year. Early research has shown that around 90 MPH a batted ball has a better chance of becoming a hit than it does an out. According to BaseballSavant, Mauer has hit over 49 balls of a batted ball rate of 90 MPH or above that have been turned into outs. Only six other batters have had that type of bad luck. M. Betts - 70 Pujols - 61 Melky Cabrera - 59 Fielder - 56 Granderson - 50 Prado - 50 Mauer - 49 There is no way to pull a historical track record of this but this leads me to believe that Mauer has hit plenty of at 'em balls or players have been positioned in places to take away a lot of those hard hit balls.

It's not necessarily bat speed that is keeping him from squaring up on pitches or driving the ball. Another data point about Mauer this season is an increase in foul balls on fastballs -- which is another way of saying he's missing them. I know Trackman doesn't date back that far but the only way really to see if his bat speed is slowing is to check on that system. Right. He's pulling the ball more but it's on the ground. He's pulling pitches that he normally wouldn't (those in the vertical middle of the zone) or on the inner-half (he would inside-out those) and when he does pull, it is on the ground. The defense can still do what it has been doing the last two years (outfield shift left, infield shift right) and take away hits.

Molitor addressed his thoughts on Mauer last week: http://www.startribune.com/twins-mauer-still-productive-despite-dip-in-batting-average/307077631/ Molitor also thinks Mauer has had some hits stolen from him.

Paragraph 4, sentence 3: "Aging, the rigors of catching, physical injuries and, of course, brain injuries have all likely played a role in his current status..." I don't want to ignore that -- I do believe there is some age-related decline in here -- but there are also numerous players who have played well into their 30's. And his second-half of last year witnessed solid production out of him. Now a lot of those players didn't catch or have concussions, which is why I think there is a blend of factors contributing to his decline. But those are the factors that are contributing to his inability to drive the ball. I have seen some references to a decline in bat speed on this site (and elsewhere) but the fact that he is ahead of more fastballs than he has been suggests to me that the bat speed is fine. Here's the thing -- aging, concussions, etc -- while they have some effects on his overall play, they are not the reason behind the change in pulling the ball more or avoiding hitting the ball into the left field corner. I don't blame the Twins for trying to get Mauer to pull the ball more -- that's a big vacancy in right field -- but I would rather he just go back to hitting into the shift and letting the cards fall as they may.

I'm hoping this thread just digresses into a debate about why they keep building a theme park on that dinosaur island. SMH

He has actually reduced the number of K's from last year but the ones he does have are mostly caught looking. It is down and away that has been the biggest culprit for called strikes. I didn't mention this in the post because I don't get paid by the word but Mauer's been more aggressive early in the count -- first pitch and otherwise -- than he has been in the past. He has had just 7% of his plate appearances going into the 3-1 count which is well-below is 13% 3-1 career average and means fewer walks and fewer counts to drive the ball.

With the Minnesota Twins experiencing a losing skid that threatens to take them below the .500 mark, there is no shortage of hand-wringing over Joe Mauer’s subpar performance. Inserted daily in a key middle-of-the-order position, Mauer has vastly underperformed his career rates. As Aaron Gleeman detailed this week, Mauer’s season has been borderline disastrous in terms of production at a position that places a premium on offensive contributions. Twins Daily’s Nick Nelson echoed those concerns as well, citing Justin Morneau’s on-going battle with concussions that has sidelined him for an indefinite period of time. The real question everyone is asking themselves is if this is how it ends for Mauer -- rather than going out with a bang, does he goes out with a whimper?Isolating the source behind Mauer’s apparent decline is a lot like trying to figure out why they keep trying to open a dinosaur theme park on that island. There are multiple factors at play and we may never know the real reason. Aging, the rigors of catching, physical injuries and, of course, brain injuries have all likely played a role in his current status. The concussion may be the easiest of the dots to connect considering his performance before and after the trauma, Mauer also managed to compile impressive second-half numbers in 2014 (.300/.388/.419 in his final 63 games) and battled an oblique injury in between. There is no denying that the concussion has had some effect on his game -- likely a significant one at that -- but the late season surge suggests that he is capable of playing through it. With that in mind, it is difficult to place the entire output decline this season squarely on the concussion. Early last season, opponents began to align their outfield defenses to combat his opposite field tendencies. The Rays were one of the first organizations to shade him almost as an exclusively opposite field hitter, moving their right fielder within steps of where a center fielder should normally play. Mauer, who averaged .422 batting average on balls in play from 2009-2013 when going the other way on the fly or on a line, suddenly found that some of those hits were being taken away. This season, with more teams joining in the outfield shift game, even fewer liners and flies are becoming hits and his average going the other way is down nearly 100 points from his 2011-2014 totals. It is somewhat surprising that it took until 2014 for teams to recognize Mauer’s radical split tendencies. After all, Fangraphs.com’s Dave Cameron was championing the use of the double shift (infielders shifting one way, outfielders the other). “So, stat guys working for MLB clubs reading this,” Cameron wrote over five years ago, “this is your challenge for 2010 – convince your manager to give the double-shift against Mauer a chance. Make him change his approach in order to get on base. Stop letting him beat you just because he’s so different than a normal hitter.” What teams finally saw in the data was a clear-cut pattern from Mauer in which almost none of his batted balls were reaching the far right portion of the outfield. At least not in the air. Why waste time covering real estate that isn’t going to get touched? Teams were smart to hedge their bets on Mauer’s opposite field tendencies. Download attachment: export.png Although the strategy only directly stole about 10 hits away from his overall totals, the shifting may have also had a psychological effect on Mauer which influenced his performance. The alignment would challenge Mauer to attempt to adjust from his bread-and-butter (opposite field liners) and try to elevate pitches on the pull side. In May manager Ron Gardenhire told the media that he felt Mauer would start hitting the ball in different zones in order to reset the defense. By the time June rolled around last year, he had successfully transitioned away from dumping balls into left and hit a higher percentage of them up the middle. His average and on-base percentage began to ramp up again as the outfield defenses began to play straight-up. This offseason Mauer and the Twins went to some length to correct the fly in the ointment to ensure the shift wouldn’t be an issue moving forward. In spring training, mlb.com’s Rhett Bollinger wrote that Mauer was working tediously with Tom Brunansky to pull the ball better than he did last season. Last season he finished with a .224 batting average when pulling the ball -- the lowest among qualified hitters. As one of the game’s best pure hitters, this was a giant pox and addressing it would be a must. After honing his craft, Mauer came out in this season’s first month with a 36% pull rate which was the highest distribution of batted balls to his pull side over the last six years. And it paid off too. He has hit .310 with a .431 slugging percentage when hitting that direction, a sizable improvement over 2014. But that may have also created new problems. One of Mauer’s most glaring problems this season has been a lack of performance against fastballs. From 2010 to 2014, he has batted .359/.451/.541 against the heat. Even last season he managed to hit .318/.408/.421 off fastballs. In all cases, the vast majority of those numbers came from driving fastballs the other way. In 2015 he is batting just .256/.310/.353 on the cheese and has attempted to pull those pitches at a much higher rate (from 18% in 2014 to 26% in 2015). What stands out the most in the data is that Mauer has increased the amount of times he chases after a fastball out of the zone -- particularly inside and off the plate: Download attachment: output_FifNOU.gif Download attachment: Mauer.png This is interesting because it appears that either Mauer or the coaching staff moved him slightly away from the plate as well. This may be a response to the jump in cutters and fastballs in on the hands. http://i.imgur.com/4DVFJe2.gif The shifting and Mauer’s response somewhat explains the decline in batting average but it certainly does not explain not being able to drive the ball with authority. While a new approach at the plate could result in some iffy contact, Mauer has witnessed a precipitous drop in both his hard hit ball figures as well as his fly ball distances. That is likely due to either his physical state or his concussion. However his game plan at the plate as well as the defensive alignment may be partly responsible for the loss of extra base hits. From 2011 through 2014, Mauer feasted upon the left field line, using that to accumulate numerous doubles. Download attachment: export (1).png With teams stationing a fielder on the chalk and a newly kindled effort to pull the ball, Mauer has hit fewer balls to the left field line than he had in the past. Download attachment: export (2).png Now when he receives a fastball on the inner-half or middle-in, instead of inside-outing the pitch or punching it towards left as he did in the past, he is now trying to go up the middle or towards right. This has resulted in a spike in grounders and the defense’s infield middle shift has taken away a number of would-be base hits. The notion that Mauer would become an power machine once he started to pull the ball more never manifested. While he has shown the ability to achieve a few more base hits on the right side, he still has not proven that he can elevate the ball in that direction and teams have opted to shade him to left to take away his extra base hit potential. Unless he can figure out a way to somehow drive the ball on the pull side, the tactics of yanking pitches has been detrimental to his overall approach. Even with the shaded defensive alignment, it may be in Mauer’s best interest to return to his strength of driving the ball the other way -- even if it means losing some hits in the process. Click here to view the article

On this week's NO JUICE PODCAST, Dan Anderson and Parker Hageman discuss the moment every Twins fan has been waiting for -- Byron Buxton has officially arrived. Did you know he's fast? You probably didn't know he is fast. Check out the videos below. LISTEN UP.Here's Byron Buxton legging out a stand-up triple with Chattanooga earlier this year: There are bound to be struggles -- particularly with sliders from right-handed pitchers -- but for now let us all enjoy watching the future of baseball play the ame with blinding speed. Listen below, on iTunes or on Stitcher: NO JUICE PODCAST, EPISODE #59: Byron Buxton's Debut Click here to view the article

Plouffe hit a home run tonight. Pitch was middle-up. Plouffe made two outs as well. Both of those were on fastballs in. Not sayin, just sayin.