Parker Hageman

Download attachment: USATSI_7418983.jpg Sources indicate that the Milwaukee Brewers have now signed pitcher Matt Garza to the tune of four years, $52 million. This is notable for several reasons. The first being that this is a substantial savings from what he was originally projected as being worth going into the free agent season. At Twins Daily, we estimated that Garza would reach five years and $75 million in the Offseason Handbook. Instead, teams shied away from him. The second interesting piece is that this deal is basically the same one that the Twins gave starter Ricky Nolasco earlier in the winter (4 years, $49M + options). Comparatively, Garza, who is a year younger than Nolasco, has had a slightly better career. However according to Fangraphs.com, since 2010, the pair has been surprisingly similar. What you see is that while the raw numbers are very alike, Garza gets better marks for his ERA, xFIP and FIP for spending time in the American League while Nolasco has been in the National League. Of course, one of the biggest concerns of teams making these sizable investments is how a player will hold up over the course of that agreement. In Nolasco’s case, he has been rock solid over his career meanwhile Garza has been in-and-out of infirmaries for arm-related ailments (Nolasco’s have been mainly trunk and thigh). Download attachment: NolascovGarza.png 1500ESPN.com's Darren Wolfson tweeted out today that the Twins were not in pursuit of Garza at the requested four-year rate, sticking firm to a potential two-year deal after signing Nolasco, Phil Hughes and Mike Pelfrey. Still, the question that will undoubtedly arise from Twins fans is -- should they have targeted Garza instead of Nolasco? Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Brunansky.jpg In what is thought of as one of the greatest Simpsons episodes of all-time, nuclear power plant owner turned softball manager, C. Montgomery Burns gave one of his ringers, Daryl Strawberry, an invaluable hitting tip. “You there. Strawberry. Hit a home run,” advised the decrepit hitting instructor. Strawberry took the counsel and smacked a dinger onto the Springfield Expressway. In a perfect world designed by major league hitting coaches, life would be that easy.Certainly, the Minnesota Twins’ newest hitting advisor, Tom Brunansky, would likely agree with that. In reality, hitting coaches have to work with players who have different styles, personalities and needs. There is no “easy button” that fixes mechanics or gets them to recognize what they are doing wrong. Hitting coaches have to surf through a sea of information, digest it and then present it back to the players in a manner which the players can relate to. Brunansky, much like a couple of his students, made the jump from the minors to the majors this year. In the minor leagues, you have buses and Red Roof Inns. In the majors, you have jets and the Four Seasons. Tools for hitting coaches have just as much separation between levels. In the minors, there are no extensive databases of pitch charts to turn to or PitchF/X cameras lining the walls of the single-tiered stadiums in the Eastern League capturing every bit of movement a pitching prospect has. Minor league hitting coaches work on instinct and experience. “Up here it’s a lot about the approaches and not about all the prep work you put into getting ready to do it because there is so much information, there’s so much video, everything you can have to get prepped and ready to go. Lower level, you don’t really have a lot, you just go out and play. Here you can really get a good idea what you’re getting into and set up a pretty good approach and have an idea what a [pitcher’s] got before you face him.” At the major league level, you can have anything you want supplied for you at the ring of a bell. Justin Morneau, before a game, wants to know about every slider that the Yankees’ C.C. Sabathia has thrown to lefties? Brunansky could have in that in charts, numbers, graphs or videos at the snap of the finger. That said, even with all the availability, Brunansky does not overindulge his hitters in the deluge of data and video. It’s not that he is advocating flying blind - it is that it can often be overwhelming. “You can get enough stuff here to choke a cow with,” says Brunansky wryly. “You can get anything you want here. There’s some in-depth stuff. You can get any stat, any number, anything you want to look at. But how does that apply? It’s taking it and seeing the [pitcher] and seeing how he pitches out there and translating all that information and breaking it down and going ‘OK guys.’ These guys don’t want to hear all that garbage. It’s my job to go crazy and decipher all that garbage and say, OK, look, this is what he does.” What about the duty of being the swing repair man? After the first month of the season, Brunansky, it seemed, would have his plate full just getting guys comfortable at the plate. The Twins offense in April was fairly anemic. They completed the month with a .239 batting average, 23 out of the 30 teams, and a .355 slugging percentage, ahead of just the hapless Marlins. Rookie Aaron Hicks was posterized by pitchers. Justin Morneau provided very little punch in the cleanup spot; Ryan Doumit as well. How does a hitting coach retool on the fly during a sport which has about two scheduled off-days a year? Like a pit stop at Daytona, it seems that major league hitting coaches have just a few moments to tinker under the hood with the mechanics, then pat them on their butts and say go get ‘em. For example, Morneau, as was pointed out numerous times by the Twins broadcasters, was pulling his front side open like a screen door in the wind; this left him vulnerable to being pitched away, which flaw teams happily exploited. When the month concluded, Morneau held a middle infielder-esque .253/.309/.379 batting line and fewer extra base hits than he had fingers on his hands. Would Brunansky set Morneau up with a video viewing room much like the one in Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, holding his eyes open and re-watching his swing until the idea of performing that act would make him violently ill? No, although that would be an interesting technique that an experimental hitting coach should try someday (perhaps in the forward-thinking Rays’ organization). Brunansky’s philosophy revolves around executing a physical feel rather than driving home the appearance. “A lot of that goes to just the feel. And that’s what hitting is anyways. Like anytime you play the game – it’s feel. You want guys to not really dwell on what they look at, it’s what they feel. And feel is easy to replicate, the look is tough. You can see something that looks like it needs a mechanical change in the swing and we’ll go try to implement it in the cage or on the field with the rest of the team, but it is feel that is easy to replicate and take that back into a game.” Likewise, the season snowballed quickly out of control for Hicks in the early going. After one month of play Hicks was staring at a .356 OPS and had struck out in over a quarter of his plate appearances. Many openly wondered if he would benefit from additional seasoning in Rochester. Would it even be possible to correct course at this level? How do you straighten out a player like that on the fly? Brunansky says it goes back to reintroducing the feel of hitting, getting hitters like Hicks and others scuffling back to the point in the batting cage and drills where they have a fundamentally sound swing. Dozens of at bats may go by without reaping the benefits of the changes but the message is that the coach would like to see the seeds of success sown during prep time. “It’s not so much that it is ‘to take effect on the field’,” says Brunansky. “It is more or less ‘to take effect in the cage’. That’s all I look for. Look for replication in the cage, the feel in the cage and take it on the field for BP. And then after that I don’t them to think, I don’t want them to do anything. I want them to set the approach for the guy that they’re facing and the situation that they are in and trust what they did. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, you have a [bad] swing. Heck with it. We go back to work.” Has Brunansky’s influence been a factor in the offensive resurgence in May? Obviously there are plenty of reasons for a significant rise in performance in a small period of time – some of that begins and ends with Joe Mauer. Yet the Twins find themselves with a .272 average in May, ninth-best in baseball, with a much improved .449 slugging percentage, fifth-best of the month so far. Individually, those struggling in the first month have rebounded nicely. Hicks has vastly reduced the number of strike outs and has put the ball in play with some power. Morneau is hitting .375. Doumit is slugging .500. It is nearly impossible to separate Brunansky’s contributions from the player’s talent, but this month they are working well in tandem. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Liriano.jpg I have stated for some time that I believe Francisco Liriano’s greatest impediment to success is his erratic mechanics. One can argue that he may be struggling mentally but that would be a chicken-and-egg argument – is he getting down on himself because his inconsistent delivery or is his delivery out of whack because he is in his own head? Either way, getting him back to a consistent base in his mechanics would likely alleviate the mental side of his game. However, Liriano’s second biggest barrier to success – or perhaps issue 1B – is his inability to retire right-handed batters regularly. On Tuesday night, he made strides towards improving in both areas. Last month, I highlighted Liriano’s delivery issues in that he was failing to remain over his front leg and, far too often, pulling off to the third base side. This wreaked havoc on his ability to control his pitches, particularly his two-seam fastball which ran too far to the pitcher’s hand side of the zone and into the left handed batter’s box. From Angels Stadium’s off-set center field camera, we were not able to get a clear view of whether or not he remained over his front leg but FSN analyst Roy Smalley raved about how he was “stacked” better, which was essentially the crux of my analysis. Two things jump out from the Pitch F/X data which may confirm Smalley’s assessment: His fastball location was significantly better, throwing it for a strike a season-high 63% of time, and his slider was much crisper, getting a swing-and-miss 25% of the time, also a season-high. The latter stat, his slider’s performance, also carries into addressing Liriano’s pitching issue 1B. Retiring righties is a serious matter for Liriano as opposing managers have figured out that he struggles mightily against them. Prior to last night’s game, managers have allowed Liriano the platoon advantage in just 15% of his match-ups, the second-lowest behind Baltimore’s Brian Matusz. What’s more is after the Angels slotted all right-handed hitters to face him on Tuesday night, Liriano is likely to move ahead of Matusz as the pitcher with the least amount of advantageous match-ups. Liriano had become all too enamored with his changeup when facing right-handed opponents. Through his first four starts he would throw his change to righties as 25% of his pitch mix. This was not too far off his pace from the 2011 season in which he threw righties changeups 26% of his pitch distribution. However, so far into the 2012 season, the old standard of leaning on his changeup was not producing results – after all, his .474 weighted On Base Average (wOBA) against right-handed batters was a baseball-high and he had walked 10 and struck out 10. Liriano took steps to remedy his right-handed problem on Tuesday by easing up on the slow stuff and exchanging it for more sliders. In his first four starts, Liriano threw at least 13 changeups, maxing out at 25 against the Rays in his most recent start. In Anaheim, Liriano deployed just three changes to an Angels lineup featuring all right-handed batters. (Unfortunately, one wound up a Torii Hunter home run.) Instead, the Twins erratic lefty mixed in more fastballs and sliders. Tuesday night’s pitch distribution was much more consistent with his 2010 methods in which he would throw 40% fastballs and 30% sliders to righties rather than the 47% fastballs and 25% changeups he was throwing prior to the start this year. And it was not just that he threw sliders, it was that he had success with sliders. Compared to the rest of the year, Liriano’s slider has been far from the devastating whiff machine it had been in 2010. That year, he missed bats at the rate of 23%. Even last year he was getting hitters to miss at 21% of his sliders. This year, it had dropped to 15%. Download attachment: Lirianos Slider.jpg Liriano went to work attempting to improve that number by getting swing-and-misses on seven of his 28 thrown, his best rate of the season thus far. Part of what made his slider effective on Tuesday was regaining his mechanical base as well as being able to locate his fastball for a strike. Following the game, he sounded satisfied in his overall performance in spite of shouldering the loss: Don’t misunderstand: Liriano has a long road back to becoming a contributing member of the Twins rotation; however, Tuesday’s start should be viewed as a positive step towards turning things around. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: IMG_1515.jpg Fresh off his "Destination Wetting", Twins Daily's Parker Hageman dispatches No Juice Podcast co-host Dan Anderson to spend time at the Twins' Dominican Academy at Baseball City in Boca Chica...on his honeymoon. In recent years, the Twins' facility and the Dominican Summer League have been graced with such Latin American talent as Yangervis Solarte (2006), Josmil Pinto (2007), Oswaldo Arica (2008), Danny Santana (2008) and, of course, Miguel Sano (2010). Dan shares his experience and observations on the players, the academy and how he convinced his new bride to allow him to drive across the island nation to watch baseball. Parker and Dan also discuss the hot Twins topics of the week and they dive into the TwinsDaily.com forum to answer some of the highly debated items on the board. Listen here, on iTunes or Stitcher. Be sure to follow the No Juice Podcast on Twitter and leave us a review on iTunes. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: USATSI_7421514.jpg Oswaldo Arcia’s rookie season was filled with the expected peaks and valleys that most normal human rookies encounter during their first year of facing the world’s best competition. Offensively, he displayed flashes of unbridled power by depositing home runs to all fields but alternated those moments with stretches of being lost. Over three games in early July, Arcia woofed 11 times in 18 at-bats. In that small sampling, he swung the bat 26 times but managed to put the ball in play just three times (two infield flies and a medium fly to left) while missing 16 times and fouling off seven more. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Sent back to Rochester shortly thereafter – perhaps just for his own sanity’s sake as he seemed ready to snap – Arcia returned to Minnesota in August for the duration of the season and continued to hit the ball hard (when he made contact). Like many overzealous noobies, Arcia struggled to maintain the respectable plate discipline he had worked hard to cultivate while in the minors in 2012. In the bigs, he reverted back to his previous ways and swung harder and more frequently than your parents at the neighbor’s key party in the late 1980’s. There are pros and cons to this approach. First, Arcia thrived in hitter’s counts when he could anticipate the heater. Perhaps because he was an unproven player, the Twins outfielder saw a higher than average number of fastballs when he had the drop on pitchers (70% vs. 62% league average) and he was able to capitalize. Of his 14 home runs, seven came on fastballs when he was ahead in the count. Beyond that, just based on batting average, he was baseball’s best when ahead in the count – his .509 batting average led the game (minimum 50 plate appearances). Skeptics can (rightly) point out that this is a small universe to make any sweeping proclamations; however the takeaway is that in situations Arcia needed to take advantage, he did. The reason that Arcia’s plate discipline numbers were so skewed towards the pitcher’s favor is because, far too often, the pitcher was in the catbird seat. Under those circumstances, he struggled mightily and hit just .160 as pitchers put away the fastball (just 44% of the time) and opened up their repertoire to twirl different offerings past his bat. Visually, we can see how much better Arcia’s swing zone is when he is ahead in the count compared to the vast swath of real estate he tries to cover once he falls behind. It turns into an “Oh my god, here’s strike three coming: Kill it! Kill it!” mentality. Download attachment: Arcia.jpg (via ESPN Stats & Info) There is no question that Arcia’s swing is fundamentally strong. With strong engagement with his lower half (controlled stride, solid hip involvement), his ability to keep his hands in to his body allows him to drive the ball well to all fields, as seen in the example below: Your browser does not support iframes. As Arcia develops his pitch recognition and comprehension skills, the presumption is he will be behind in the count less often as pitchers become more reluctant to throw him anything cherry. If he is able to ignore those out-of-zone pitches, this should allow for him to jump on more of the suitable pitches and deploy his powerful swing. Click here to view the article

Based on what has been seen this spring, if Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire still had hair on top of his head he would likely have scratched himself bald trying to figure out how to score runs with his lineup. For an entire week leading up to the season, it has felt like a broken record (or skipping iPod, or whatever the kids say these days): How is this lineup going to score runs? There has been little demonstration of power before Saturday’s three home run binge. Timely hitting has been off-the-clock. They haven’t even accidentally manufactured runs. The front office members fielding the questions urged patience and downplayed any importance of spring training numbers but the concern is there. “What we’ve done this spring, we’ve seen in the regular season,” Twins assistant GM Rob Antony said in reference to the team’s continuation of the offense’s 2013 scary-bad (in)ability to hit with runners in scoring position that has carried over to this spring. In the final handful of Grapefruit League games, Gardenhire has produced several variations of lineup cards, hoping to generate runs and trying different things he suggested came from the computers “upstairs”. By “upstairs”, the manager was referring to his baseball operations team that has been slowly building influence with and trust from the field general. Jack Goin, the organization’s manager of major league administration and baseball research, says that he and his group have had dialogues with Gardenhire, educating a traditionalist on the modern offensive theories -- such as the importance of having a two-hole hitter with on-base abilities rather than one who is adept at hitting behind the runner, squaring up for bunts or skilled at hit-and-run contact. If implemented, some of these theories could help squeeze a valuable run or two more than the traditional lineups. When asked what in his experience changed that made him more receptive to the game theories, Gardenhire balked at the idea that he did not manage by the numbers. "Believe me, I love to look at numbers,” he said in his Hammond Stadium office. “I’ve always been into numbers, I go with match-ups and all these things, I also believe in a starting lineup trying to put a consistent lineup down. But I use match-ups all the time. I’ve been a little more old school as far as the lineup, one-two-three, that type of thing, they way I grew up playing ball and these things. I see a lot of different lineups nowadays and I’ve been reading into it a little bit more, talking to our people -- it can come up interesting sometimes.” A little over a year ago, his tune was a bit different when it came to generating his lineup. "I've always had the thought a No. 2 guy has to be able to take pitches a little bit," Gardenhire told the St. Paul Pioneer Press last March. "He has to be able to protect the guy on base and be an on-base-percentage guy also so your 3-4-5 guys are getting opportunities." Nevertheless, when last season started Gardenhire came around to the novel concept that getting extra at-bats for his offensive star would be beneficial to his club. Last year, prior to his concussion, Joe Mauer was batting second for 87 games. There, he got on base at a 38.5% clip and scored 52 runs (however, no one behind him was able to drive him in). There are some who believe a player like Mauer, with his robust on-base percentage, is not hitting high enough in the order at two. With his career .405 OBP, he profiles as a dangerous and incessant table-setter. “Joe Mauer leading off?” Gardenhire asked himself the question that he undoubtedly has heard numerous times. “Sure, for a perfect team that’s great. A good team with a solid lineup, Joe Mauer would be a wonderful leadoff hitter but you have to have a lot more hitters in your lineup to let him do something like that. We need him in different roles that just leading off. We need him to drive the ball and all those things. Some lineups it works, some lineups it doesn’t work. Ours? It’s kind of hit and miss.” His concern is merited as the unknowns surrounding what the core of the lineup -- the Josh Willinghams, the Jason Kubels, the Trevor Plouffes -- will be able to contribute are numerous. Likewise for further down the order with Oswaldo Arcia and Aaron Hicks. This spring, as was the case in the final warm-up game of the year on Saturday, Gardenhire presented the umpire with a lineup card which had Brian Dozier at the top. The right-handed infielder in his third year of major league ball has been criticized as lacking the requisite OBP of the high caliber leadoff hitters. In 231 games with the Twins, Dozier has posted an OBP of .297, though that figure has grown some as his experience has increased. That notion does not faze Gardenhire. “I’ve had guys in the one-hole before that aren’t on-base guys,” he said. “When I first started managing it was Jacque Jones and, believe me, he wasn’t a leadoff hitter. But he was also a guy who could make it one-to-nothing really quick; Dozier can do that too.” There may be a psychological benefit for getting that early lead but those can be home runs that have not been leveraged to their full potential. Jones hit 20 first inning leadoff home runs in 320 games in his career. Those dingers would probably have been better served if someone was on base ahead of him, say someone who has an over-.400 on-base percentage, right? "You know what? Sometime you go with what you got. Prototype, I don’t have a [Denard] Span-type who takes a lot of pitches, so we took Dozier and I feel comfortable with him. I think he’s going to hit .300 and he can drive the ball too. Stick him in there with Mauer right behind him, that’s two guys who I think will do good together and kind of bunch our hitters together.” While catcher Kurt Suzuki has played a prominent role in the second spot in the order this spring, perhaps feeding Gardenhire’s lingering need to stick to the traditional lineup roles, Mauer figures to see plenty of starts in the two-hole depending on the match-ups. Gardenhire said that the lineup construction is fluid and will be highly dependent on who is hitting well. "It’s wide open, you just move them around,” he said. “As lineups go, if they’re hitting, they’re hitting. I don’t care where you put them when they are hitting. Everybody says stack your best lineups and all of your best hitters but it is good to have balance all the way through your lineups, if you can do that. Yeah we’ve tried a lot of different lineups but ultimately, it gets down to having a bunch of guys together all hitting. When they are doing that, then you are going to say ‘wow, that worked.’" And hitting would certainly silence the critics. “If we get on a hot roll here, which I hope we do right out of the chute, you guys won’t even talk about who is hitting first or second.” Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Twins Infield.jpg After three straight 90-loss seasons, the Minnesota Twins need a reinvention. While other teams have harnessed analytics to advance their in-game strategies, the Twins remained analog in a digital world. No longer. Not long ago, the notion of “infield shifting” in the Twins dugout may have been a reference to adjusting one’s protective cup. Now, according to MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger, the Twins and new bench coach Paul Molitor are to join the rest of baseball when it comes to defensive positioning. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] “The game has changed so much; we’re seeing more overshifts and people not afraid to give up space based on tendencies, so it’s something I’m excited about learning about and applying to the way we play defense,” Molitor told Bollinger this week. The Twins, who finished in the middle of the pack when it came to using shifts in 2013, may increase the usage this season. With the help of Jack Goin, the manager of Major League Administration and Baseball Research, and Sean Harlin, the team’s video director, Molitor is looking for an edge. And that edge may include the use of infield shifts. New use of an old trick To be sure, this is certainly not groundbreaking stuff by any means. The idea is to play to a hitter’s tendency by overloading defenders into a zone that a hitter frequents. This methodology, initially known as the Williams Shift, was implemented shortly after World War II by Indians manager Lou Boudreau, who stacked his infielders on the right side when facing Boston’s left-handed hitting Ted Williams. With the advent and dissemination of batted ball data broken down to minutia, forward-thinking teams have been implementing this strategy lately. Last July, Baseball Info Solution’s John Dewan reported that, much like Facebook, everybody and their mothers are doing it. In 2010 the shift was used just 2,465 times. In 2012 it was up to 4,577. Midway through last season, the baseball world was on pace to shift over 7,000 times. At the top of the list for teams who used the shift were teams like Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, generally considered as being the most likely to use statistical analysis. Joining them was the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose defensive efforts were lauded in 2013 and their generous use of the infield shift was at the forefront of items receiving praise. In 2011, Dan Fox -- the team’s Director of Baseball Systems Development and a former Baseball Prospectus contributor -- convinced the organization to sway from baseball convention and embrace playing the odds. The result was a significant swing in defensive efficiency – transforming from Swiss cheese infield to, I don’t know, let’s say a cheese with the ability to make plays up the middle. Issues with the shift? Not all teams see shifting as a net positive. The St. Louis Cardinals, a very well-respected organization, had been a proponent of the shift in 2012. That year manager Mike Matheny said he and front office members reviewed data that showed the advantage of having fielders set up against certain players who have a tendency to hit ground balls or shallow liners in distinct zones 80% of the time or more. However, Matheny’s pitching staff found it was difficult to pitch to that type of alignment in order to make it work. “Last year there were times when we were shifting and I knew [the pitchers] weren’t real comfortable with it,” Matheny told the media last August. “No matter what I believe, we can talk to guys about the importance and show them the statistics, but if they don’t feel comfortable with how the defense is aligned behind them, we’re wasting our time.” Meanwhile, the Oakland A’s newest closer and ground ball aficionado, Jim Johnson, who was a member of the shift-happy Orioles last year, found that the overuse made little sense. “It’s fine on certain guys, but I think sometimes it gets a little carried away,” Johnson remarked last season. “Trying to do things just to do things, you know. If you’re shifting on a number 8 hitter, just because [the numbers] say he grounds out to the right side, and you’ve got a guy throwing 99mph that he’s probably not going to turn around, then why are you shifting?” Pitchers are not the only ones who believe that the shift has shortcomings that may outweigh the positives. In 2012 Bill James penned a piece that suggested there are too many unstudied, undocumented occurrences that happen because of the shift that make it problematic and possibly detrimental. Those include: Lost opportunities during foul pops on the right side of the infield because a third baseman is moved,Missed double play opportunities because fielders are out of position,And missed relays because fielders are out of position, among others.Teams like Tampa and Pittsburgh, who have taken measures to implement the shift strategy system-wide so that fielders are used to playing in a shift, may be equipped to handle those scenarios but a team like the Twins (who may or may not begin to incorporate more shifts in 2014) could find those moments causing more headaches than relieving them. This year, James also prophesized that the days of the shift are numbered and that once ego-driven sluggers begin to recognize that they could bat .700 by simply laying down a bunt (or a bunt double like Robinson Cano did), teams will no longer find giving up hits carte blache to be a worthwhile strategy. Is there a tangible advantage? Then there is the question of exactly how much does the shift improve a team’s ability to convert grounders in outs. As it stands, Baseball Info Solutions believes that teams like the 2013 Pirates were given a 2-win advantage because of their use of the shift. Of course, what James argues is that BIS’s system does not account for those mishaps and missed opportunities. At the end of the day, the top shift addicts were marginally better than teams like the Twins and Cardinals who it used more recreationally when it came to turning ground balls into outs. Download attachment: Chart.png The 2013 data from ESPN/trumedia shows that the average major league team recorded outs on 77.3% of ground balls. While teams like the Pirates and Orioles scored very high by the Out-of-Zone metric (plays made by fielders out of the typical zone of that position which - surprise - is what happens when you shift a lot) and made their Ultimate Zone Ratings look good, the benefits were negligible compared to the Twins and Cardinals who did not use the shift. The Twins were very strong on the second base/first base side (represented by the Right/Far Right from the batter’s perspective) and based on Mauer’s athletic abilities, there stands a chance that first base should be improved defensively in 2014. Where the Twins lagged greatly last year was the defense up-the-middle: For example, while the shifty Pirates recorded outs on an MLB-best 64.9% of grounders hit in the middle of the diamond, the Twins struggled to defend that turf (which has been a long-standing problem). Could infield shifting improve the out conversion rate for the Twins? Playing the tendency and shifting does not always translate into a complete overload of the right or left side of the diamond either. The Twins recently hired Sam Perlozzo to handle the minor league infielders, the role vacated by Paul Molitor when he was promoted, and Perlozzo’s former job in Philadelphia was positioning the infielders. Although the Phillies did not use the overload shift, Perlozzo told reporters in 2012 that he will use the data to position his fielders, but it may not mean the shortstop is swinging all the way around the horn. While Molitor begins to play the odds at the major league level, Perlozzo will likely try to establish similar techniques at the lower levels. Will it work? If Baseball Info Solutions’ assessment of the effects of the infield shifts proves accurate, the Twins may be able to claim wins at the margins. With three 90-loss seasons, trying anything different is a good thing. Click here to view the article

The Twins have frequently been accused of not catering to power arms and also not taking risks on their offseason signings. On Sunday, they may have made inroads in both areas by agreeing to a deal, pending a physical, with former Tigers flame-thrower Joel Zumaya. According to Joe Christensen, the Twins and Zumaya have agreed to terms of a deal worth $800,000, with the potential of adding another $900,000 of incentives based on innings pitched, pending a physical. Zumaya, the talented yet often injured pitcher, has drawn some interest this offseason. In early December, the free agent Zumaya was in Houston to throw off the mound in front of teams. Fox Sports’ Jon Morosi tweeted that a scout told him that “almost every team was there” to watch him. Reports from the Texas audition were that the 27-year-old right hander was throwing in the mid-90s, down slightly from his 98.5 mile-per-hour average from 2007 through 2010. Based on this, several team courted Zumaya as a potential buy-low, reward-high type of arm. Both Boston and San Diego were engaged in talks with him but, as the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo reported, one AL team’s doctors did not believe that Zumaya would be able to pass a physical in order to be signed. Because the concern, it is easy to see why he would be available for under a million. Download attachment: Zumaya_Velocity.jpg As you can glean from the chart above, Zumaya’s fastball is pure diesel fuel. From 2007 to 2010, Zumaya averaged the hardest fastball in the majors. Although an impressive feat, his regular absence from the active roster was a true detriment. After bursting onto the scene in 2006 as a hot-shot 22-year-old reliever, he supposedly destroyed his elbow in 2006 by playing Guitar Hero too much (a video game that is no longer available either). In 2007, Zumaya missed extended time when he dislocated his finger while warming up in the bullpen and threw just 33.2 innings that season. Those 33.2 innings would be the most he would throw in a single season outside of his rookie year. In November of 2007, he would require AC joint reconstruction in his throwing shoulder (which he injured removing items from his Southern California homes during one of the wildfires) and missed a substantial portion of the 2008 season. The following year he would re-aggravate the shoulder in July of 2009 and wound up on the DL as the pain kept him from being able to lift his arm above his head. Finally, in 2010 most Twins fans were witness to Zumaya’s elbow exploding (a fractured olecranon) on a 99-mile-per-hour pitch to Delmon Young. He would miss the entire 2011 season because of that last injury, which necessitated a subsequent surgical procedure to replace a screw that was inserted into his elbow after the fracture. Given the laundry list of ailments, it wouldn’t surprise me that during his impending physical that those doctors discover that his elbow is being held together with rubber band and duct tape. Clearly, there is an injury risk associated with him but when healthy, he’s been a dominate arm in the bullpen. Over his career, he’s thrown 209.1 innings, striking out 23.1% of all batters faced and holding opponents to a .213 average against. However, unlike the majority of his Twin counterparts, Zumaya’s been a bit erratic with his control. His 12.8 % walk rate dating back to 2007 has been one of the league’s higher numbers in that period. Because of the various injuries, you can see how they would affect his command, particularly in 2008 and 2009 when he was recovering from shoulder surgery (44 walks in 54.1 innings). Considering he is recovering from elbow surgery this time around, it is very possible that Zumaya will struggle with his control in 2012. If things work out favorable for Zumaya in the health department, it is an exciting move that could transform the look of the bullpen, giving Ron Gardenhire a viable late innings right-handed option that was missing from the 2011 squad. At the same time, we must remember that Zumaya is coming off surgery that really has no comparables that would indicate how he will respond. Early indications suggest that the velocity is not quite what it was – as Phil Mackey tweeted, the Twins clocked Zumaya between 92-94 miles per hour – so while it is still good readings, you have to wonder if several ticks off the fastball (one that is thrown up and over the plate) translates into a few more hits. On top of that, there are some team doctors who simply do not think he would pass a physical let alone finish an entire season. This is certainly an out-of-the-box move for the Twins. We’ve seen a steady history of safe bets - those low-risk/ low-reward acquisitions for the bullpen that have become the organization’s MO. Zumaya, who’s obviously a high risk with his injury history, yet he represents a very high reward. With less a million dollars invested, the Zumaya signing is a good gamble for Minnesota. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Doumit.jpg In their efforts to repair the damage of three straight 90-loss seasons, the Twins front office acted decisively this offseason. And, sure, maybe part of this decisive plan was to steal an idea from the Blues Brothers and get the band back together, adding a name that (at the very least) will remind fans of happier times. Following a two year hiatus of not [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]having a player named Jason Kubel on the roster, Terry Ryan rectified that by signing one to a minor league deal. In his time away from the organization, Kubel had a solid 2012 with Arizona but a fall-off-the-face-of-the-earth 2013 season saw him get cut from the Diamondbacks and finish the year in Cleveland. The offensive slide stems from a lack of contact, specifically when facing fastballs, and injuries likely played a factor in that decline. The Twins are making the bet that Kubel can rebound from the atrocity he committed last season. While Kubel’s deal comes with no guarantee he will see time in Minnesota, the free agent told sources that he felt he had a better opportunity to play with the Twins than with another team which offered a major league deal. Because Kubel will conceivably fill the role of left-handed outfielder/designated hitter in the lineup, Ryan Doumit’s role was marginalized. Doumit, who also had a solid 2012 but a far worse 2013 season, said that because of concussions and age, he was less interested in catching and wanted to spend more time in another position. The Twins now had a cheaper version of Doumit in Kubel. This redundancy on the roster allowed the Twins to pursue a trade of Doumit. The Braves, in need of a catcher/outfielder, traded their system’s fourth-best prospect, left-handed starter Sean Gilmartin. Furthermore, if projection systems are in any way reliable (they are not) Fangraphs.com’s Oliver projection suggests that Kubel (.724 OPS) will slightly outperform Doumit (.710) offensively. In theory the swap gives Minnesota added depth at the high-end of the minor leagues, saves $500,000 in Doumit’s salary and gives the potential for greater production on the major league team. More Top '13 Stories: #13 - Twins in the WBC#12 - Drew Butera Traded Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Harden.jpg The Minnesota Twins continue to stockpile arms for what could be an interesting competition for a rotation spot this spring. First reported by the Star Tribune’s LeVelle Neal yesterday, the Twins moved quickly and signed right-handed starter Rich Harden to a minor league deal to include a spring training invite. Harden, 31, missed all of 2012 after a shoulder strain necessitated rotator cuff surgery. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Interestingly enough, the injury’s origin, Harden believes, was sustained in 2007 when he tore the capsule attempting to field a comebacker bare handed against the Yankees. The Athletics did not disclose the injury because of medical privacy laws. In order to combat the problem, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, Harden revamped his mechanics in 2008. The disruption in his shoulder may have sparked a lengthy list of other ailments as he tried to compensate for his original injury. When healthy, he has been a front-end type starter. In fact, dating back to 2008, no one has missed more bats than Harden. Armed with a lethal slider, Harden has a career swinging strike rate of 12.5% and has a career strikeout rate of 24.2%. Of course, the is plenty of risk suggesting that following a rotator cuff surgery, he may never fully regain his stuff prior to the repair. As Houston’s team physician, Dr. David Lintner, told MLB.com in 2007, unlike Tommy John surgery, rotator cuff repair is not nearly as easy to return from: Linter goes on to estimate that of pitchers who have complete tears of their rotator cuff, there is a fifty-fifty chance they get back on the mound. Harden could wind up this year’s version of Joel Zumaya: an oft-injured pitcher with tons of promise but ultimately ends up a failure to launch in Florida. That notwithstanding, the Twins have made a calculated signing and have acquired for pennies an arm that is capable of missing a substantial amount of bats – something lacking at the highest levels. If he does not pan out as a starter, Harden could still be a serviceable arm in the bullpen in a limited capacity. In addition to inking Harden, the Twins also announce their list of spring training invitees. The list includes pitchers Bryan Augenstein, Nick Blackburn, Deolis Guerra, Alex Meyer, Lester Oliveros and Anthony Slama; outfielders Brandon Boggs and Clete Thomas; infielders Jeff Clement, Chris Colabello, Ray Olmedo and Mark Sobolewski; and catchers Kyle Knudson, Danny Lehmann and Dan Rohlfing. Also revealed, starter Scott Diamond had a scope on his left elbow to remove some bone chips on Tuesday. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: USATSI_7824340.jpg This offseason the Minnesota Twins found themselves with the difficult task of attempting to replace something irreplaceable. When Joe Mauer made his decision that he would no longer be putting on the tools of ignorance, the front office and manager reviewed their options. Internally, they were high on Josmil Pinto’s bat but felt his defense needed further refinement before being promoted to full-time catcher. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]The search led them to the realization that they needed someone who had experience handling a major league staff. All roads led to the 30-year-old Kurt Suzuki, who had quarterbacked pitching in Oakland and Washington, working with pitchers at the beginning, middle and end of their careers. His skills combined with his preparation made him the ideal option. “We’re really happy to have him here,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said about his new veteran catcher. “His pre-game, the whole package. We know he can call a game, we watched him do it from afar. He’s had some really good pitching staffs that he’s caught. All of our reports were you want this guy on your team. And all of our reports were right. Everybody we talked to said this guy is really going to help you out and you are going to like him a lot. And he is exactly that.” The Twins are also hoping Suzuki’s preparation and mental approach will be a model for the young Pinto as he begins his career. “He handles himself very well, very professional and cares a lot about the pitching side of it,” Gardenhire continued. “He knows that’s his job. The hitting part is the other side of it but he really, really takes a lot of pride in his catching. You take Joe out from behind the plate you’re open up a big hole so filling it with Zuke is pretty good." Replacing Joe’s bat in an offseason would be a near impossibility. Mauer has been a once-in-a-generation type hitter. But, in Suzuki, the early reports are they may have found a strong defensive catcher with leadership skills and a serviceable bat for the position. Over his career, Suzuki has built a reputation as being an above-average defensive catcher. While he does not profile to be one of the savvy pitch-framers like the Jonathan Lucroy or Jose Molina, he has shown potential to block pitches well. Last year Baseball Prospectus’ advanced catching metrics suggested he was worth about one win above the average catcher when it came to preventing wild pitches and passed balls. Interestingly enough, for all the discussion of his game-planning and ability to smother pitches in the dirt, in 2013 Suzuki’s pitchers threw more fastballs to him than any other catcher in the game (save for Houston’s Carlos Corporan). With more than 12,000 pitches called while splitting time between Washington and Oakland last year, over 63% were heaters says ESPN/trumedia’s database. Suzuki said this was not a strategy by design or a fear of breaking balls. The arsenal of the pitching staff dictated what digit he would put down. In the case of the Nationals, they were stacked with flame-throwers and led baseball with an average fastball velocity of 92.8 miles per hour. “Everybody on the staff in Washington last year threw 95 and above. When you've got guys like that, you don’t want to be sixty percent offspeed,” he said. “You want to attack guys with the fastball and make them hit the fastball. Jordan Zimmermann, a perfect example, won 19-games last year, I caught pretty much all of his starts and he had probably one of the highest fastball percentages. He just attacked hitters with his fastball.” But the same thing happened in Oakland with a staff that was barely cracking the 90s: fastballs all day long. Knowing the Athletics are an organization always looking for an edge, was it a strategy used in conjunction with the spacious O.co Stadium? Would there be a similar tendency to favor fastballs at Target Field, another pitcher’s park, this year? “Just because the field is big, I’m not going to call more fastballs. That’s definitely not how it works. You go with what your pitcher's strengths are -- [Phil] Hughes, [Mike] Pelfrey, maybe more fastball guys than like [Ricky] Nolasco. And obviously if you are not feeling your fastball, you might not call it all the time. It kind of depends on the day and scouting report and stuff like that.” The Twins pitchers’ early impressions of Suzuki’s style have been positive. Staff has mentioned how they like how Suzuki has taken control in spring games, been vocal on his trips to the mound and has generally been sympatico when it comes to what pitch comes next. “I love it. He’s one of my favorites of my career. Honestly. Definitely in the top two or three. He’s up there,” said the Twins’ Opening Day starter Ricky Nolasco. “He’s really good and that’s just from spring training. So once season starts, everything changes, the philosophy changes, and things like that so it will be fun to work with him. Once he starts seeing different stuff with the adrenaline going, that will be fun to work with.” His game-calling abilities have taken the thought process away, allowing the pitchers to grip it and rip it. “There’s not much thinking when he’s back there, that’s what’s good about it,” Nolasco continued. “So you just go with him and he pays attention and sees a lot of things that maybe I may not. I’ve always thought I’ve done a pretty good job of reading hitters but with him back there he does the same thing.” By constantly preparing for both the competition and his pitching staff, Suzuki has earned the respect and confidence of his pitchers and coaching staff. “I do a lot of scouting reports. A lot of pre-game stuff. It’s one of those things that if you are 100% prepared before you go out there, you feel more comfortable putting down the finger.” Offensively, his contributions have not been through high on-base abilities or inflated OPS figures. Still, he finds other ways to chip in. Suzuki prides himself on avoiding strikeouts as much as possible, a significant issue for the Twins last year when they struck out in nearly a quarter of their plate appearances and at a whopping 25% clip when runners were in scoring position. “I hated striking out, going all the way back in high school,” Suzuki said. “I made it my approach that when I get two strikes, I try put the ball in play, barrel on the ball, just do whatever I can to put the ball in play and not strike out.” Putting the ball in play with two-strikes has been a specialty for the catcher. Last year with two strikes on him, Suzuki was able to put the ball between the chalk lines in 49% of his two-strike plate appearances, well above the league average mark of 40%. While the results of those at bats were not exactly Joe Mauer-like, who led baseball with a .291 two-strike average, Suzuki performed better than the norm by hitting .199 in those situations. Suzuki is rife with intangibles. The Twins know he is going to make outs, that he is not the on-base juggernaut his predecessor had been. The expectations are he is going to guide a newly collected pitching staff to better results and potentially mentor the future starting catcher. Twins are hoping to get enough production out of him with the benefit of those intangibles to make his addition worthwhile. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Twins.jpg With the calendar flipping to 2014 tomorrow, Twins fans must be eager to hurry that process along. After all, the previous season was a mire with yet another 90+ loss year on the ledger. Although no one should be criticized for having his attention wander from the team before spring training, there were still plenty of entertaining moments to remember - little things that make the entire sport of baseball beautiful. Below are the Top 10 moments from 2013. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Honorable Mention: Glen Perkins Pitches With Fly Down Just what it sounds like. Download attachment: Perkins.jpg (h/t cjzero) 10. Aaron Hicks: Card-Carrying Member of the NRA He has to be when you see his gun. It should be no surprise considering teams were thinking about drafting him as a pitcher out of high school where he threw upper 90s cheddar on the mound. Turns out that velocity translates well to the outfield. At Yankee Stadium, after letting the ball carom off the wall, Hicks caught up with it just short of the warning track and delivered a bullet to third to nail the Yankees’ Vernon Wells who was looking for the extra base. http://www-thescore.s3.amazonaws.com/images/128017/original.gif?1373685892 Wells was just one of Hicks’ nine outfield assists in his rookie year -- that was the highest number of assists for someone with so few innings (701 innings). (h/t @cjzero) 9. Oswaldo Arcia Tries To Bo Jackson His Bat, Fails All rookies have a tendency to struggle as they adapt to a higher level of pitching. Oswaldo Arcia was no different. While demonstrating mouthwatering power at times, he also went through a long stretch where he could not make contact with a pitched ball. With it, apparently, came frustration. In Tampa, Arcia could not take it anymore. After another K, he tried to take it out on his bat but the bat -- presumably not weakened by contact -- wouldn’t give. (h/t Me and my Vine) 8. Darin Mastroianni’s Belt-Busting Grab Mastroianni, who spent a significant portion of the year sidelined with a foot injury, showed that he can cover a sizable amount of real estate. In limited time, he made plays on 32 of the 34 balls in his zone while playing outfield. Additionally, he managed to snag eight more that were outside of the typical fielder’s zone - including this one in Houston. While thwarting this should-be extra base hit, Mastroianni lays out on the warning track. In doing so, the coarse Texas dirt did more damage to his belt than a night at Old Country Buffet. Mastroianni was saved by borrowing the pants holder-upper from a member of his bullpen: http://media.giphy.com/media/qIVLNZgDkH3a0/giphy.gif Just a reminder that baseball is the only one of the four major sports to have belts as a part of their uniforms. (h/t Giphy.com) 7. Brian Dozier’s Glorious Hair After an unsuccessful season at shortstop in 2012, Brian Dozier moved one position to the left. There, he displayed solid glove work and, occasionally, flashy plays like this one. http://l.yimg.com/os/publish-images/sports/2013-07-22/4fbe6b3b-dcf8-45b2-b295-d5d01a72c81f_792979101.gif OK, so it is less about the actual catch and more about the Hollywood hair. This must be female baseball fan’s equivalent of watching Phoebe Cates climb out of the pool in slow motion in Fast Time At Ridgemont High. Makes you feel all funny inside; like climbing the ropes in gym class. It is clear he lathers, rinses and repeats. Repeating is so important. (h/t: Yahoo Sports Big League Stew) 6. Joe Mauer Is An Athletic Freak The study of measuring a catcher’s contributions has grown exponentially among the statistics crowd with the proliferation of framing studies and data. While the jury may still be out on how much value those extra strikes can provide a team, having an athletic freak of nature wearing the tools of ignorance still pays dividends. Case in point, with a relay from Hicks-to-Florimon-to-home gone awry Mauer, a towering former football and basketball recruit out of high school, leaps in the air to secure the errant throw and adjusts to tag out Boston’s Stephen Drew at the plate. Simply amazing to watch. http://25.media.tumblr.com/1b955bbd97d21fdfb481e9f235111d1c/tumblr_mmepjgAkJy1ro5xweo1_400.gif With the move to first base set for 2014, Mauer should be remembered as one of the game’s most athletically gifted catchers because of plays like this. If that is not enough, surely this honorable mention will convince you that he has not just a sixth but a seventh sense for the game of baseball: http://mlb.mlb.com/assets/images/custom/tumblr_mo4u1rJw0i1ro5xweo1_400_tl8m82rv.gif (h/t Drawn To MLB) 5. Justin Morneau High-Fives Nobody Justin Morneau had a career-high streak of 168 at-bats without a homer when he busted out with a long one on June 20. When he returned to the dugout, his teammates gave the veteran the big snub. Rather than succumb to their silent treatment, Morneau threw out a bunch of air fives. http://24.media.tumb...o5xweo1_400.gif Traded to Pittsburgh at the waiver deadline, Morneau has signed with the Rockies and rejoined former teammate Michael Cuddyer who, according to former Twins teammates, distributes an extremely painful high five. (h/t Drawn to MLB) 4. Ballboy Makes Second Best Catch At Target Field Paul Neshek, former Twins reliever Pat Neshek’s brother is patrolling the left field line. The White Sox' Alexi Ramirez laces a liner that is destined for a fan’s face. Neshek leaps from his perch and snares that mofo before it can do damage. Look at the clearance he gets in order to intercept this missile. Your browser does not support iframes. http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=28195859[/media] (h/t MLB.com) 3. Jared Burton Knocks Out Brian Duensing Oh, the fun you have in a bullpen. http://img.gawkerass...f/ku-xlarge.gif Apparently, former teammate Matt Maloney had the idea of miming a knockout punch in the bullpen and so when Chris Colabello (Italian for “Beautiful Cola”) launched a drive that would clear the Twins bullpen in Chicago, Brian Duensing told Burton to throw a punch, to which Burton obliged. Naturally, the results were amazing. (h/t Deadspin) 2. Trevor Plouffe Goes Ass Over Tea Kettle In Kansas City For A Foul Ball For good reason, Plouffe takes a lot of heat for his defense at third. This was not one of those times. http://25.media.tumb...o5xweo1_400.gif (h/t Drawn To MLB) 1. Chris Parmelee Makes Twins Fan Lose His Effin’ Mind Chris Parmelee, giving Justin Morneau a reprieve at first, chased a Milwaukee Brewer foul ball towards the camera well near the Twins’ dugout. The ball appeared well out of reach of Parmelee’s grasp, easily being a play that could have been given up on. Instead, Parmelee superman’d himself over the padded gate, over the three concrete steps down and somehow found the ball as he landed at the feet of FSN’s Marney Gellner. It was a play that was made with complete disregard for human life. http://s3-ec.buzzfed...69931506-13.gif OK, so full confession: the reason this was - in my opinion - the best play of 2013 was because I saw the play up close and personal. With seats on the rail, the foul ball tailed off the field of play and was headed directly to where I was sitting. In fact, I believe I called it in the air. The ball, however, landed a few feet short of my outstretched hands. Fixated on the ball the entire time, I completely missed Parmelee’s approach. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw a white blur diving and gloving the ball before landing hard on the concrete surface below. Outside of seeing my daughter being born, it was the single-greatest thing I have ever eyewitnessed. Thus, I made this face: http://s3-ec.buzzfed...69931744-19.gif Buzzfeed later dubbed it a “Mom made Pizza Rolls” face. I defy any of you to watch the play from the same spot I had and not to have had the same reaction. (Bonus fact: That’s my Dad doing the double-barrelled fist-pump next to me.) (h/t Buzzfeed) Click here to view the article

Download attachment: cash.jpg This is back-of-the-napkin type math based on a lot of assumption so please, do not attempt to cite the concluded numbers as final. They are, in essence, an educated guess that is founded from bits and pieces of available public information. But let’s use it to attempt to figure out why the Tigers are able to make it rain on the free agent market while the Twins are left counting pennies. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The Tigers recently signed Torii Hunter to a two-year, $26 million deal. With that addition, Detroit now has five players under contract for 2013 who are scheduled to make $10 million or more for a grand total of $81 million. Plus, they have not completely ruled out extending pitcher Anibal Sanchez, who is seeking roughly $15 million per year. How is it that the Tigers are spending small principalities worth of money while the Twins stand idly by and target the one or two-year bargains? Detroit made approximately $93.93M at the gate last year (based on attendance multiplied by the $31 ticket price average sold). The Twins, on the other hand, made $91.74M (averaging $33 per ticket sold). That’s without taking into consideration advertising the stadium, suites, luxury boxes, concessions (which can range from $3.4 million to $20 million depending on the attendance and offerings). Assuming the Tigers were one of the teams to make the higher end of that based on their competitiveness and relatively new stadium, with a payroll of $133 million in 2012, they likely came in $10 million short. Comparatively, the Twins who also likely made the higher end of the stadium-generated revenue from suites and concessions, could have potentially made $10 million in profits (without taking in to consideration the operating costs, farm system expenses, etc, etc). Then there is the benefits of being a playoff team. According to research done by BizofBaseball.com’s Maury Brown, teams can stand to make an average of $1 to $2 million per game in the playoffs. If we split the difference, the Tigers could have made approximately $19.5 million for the 13 games played in October. In addition to that, Brown notes, the real windfall is the revenue generated for the following year as the club receives additional season ticket requests, sponsorships and are able to leverage that if local TV/radio contracts are up in the air. With the Twins not making it into even playoff contention for the second straight season, undoubtedly season ticket sales and sponsorship requests are down. The Tigers can plan for additional revenues whereas the Twins will likely brace for some fallout. The biggest difference maker between the two markets is the size of the TV contracts: The Tigers get an estimated $50M per season from their Fox Sports affiliate while the Twins are getting $29M per season. Download attachment: untitled.PNG So, rather than having an operating loss as described above, the Tigers have somewhere closer to a $60 million profit thanks to the playoffs and broadcast rights. The Twins, meanwhile, could have somewhere in the ballpark of $39 million – a difference of $21 million in favor of the Tigers. What’s more, both teams, starting in 2014, will receive $50 million from the MLB central fund because of the new television contracts with ESPN and TBS. This added bonus certainly is taken into consideration when teams and agents are projecting long-term contracts. In the end, the Tigers could be poised to spend roughly $110 million (with some operating expenses removed) in 2014 while the Twins will be trying to compete with $89 million (with operating costs and what is certain to be a decline in ticket/stadium-based revenue). While it is not at the level as Detroit, the Twins still have plenty of money to spend for 2013 (particularly when you consider how much they have dropped off their payroll from the 2012 season) so they should not be crying poor. Sure, the ownership may be pocketing this additional funds – and that’s their prerogative – but, based on my outsider calculations, there appears to be plenty of revenue to add a few of the game’s top free agents…if they wanted to. Click here to view the article

Samuel Deduno likes to refer to his fastball as “crazy”, hinting that the pitch has a mind of its own. As opponents haplessly attempt to put wood on it, Deduno’s fastball also confuses the Pitchf/x computer system. Deduno’s movement – the diving, the darting, the running, et cetera -- tricks the system into believing he has multiple variations of a fastball. Plenty of those offerings are bucketed as cut fastballs. However, when asked about his fastball last year, catcher Joe Mauer confirmed that it is the same four-seam fastball with unpredictable movement. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The movement is not only unpredictable but it is extraordinary as well. The sink action on his fastball has been one of the best in the game. According to BaseballProspectus.com’s Pitchf/x leaderboard, Deduno’s sink on his fastball (2.88) is head and shoulders above (or is it below?) any other pitcher's dating back to the installation of the Pitchf/x cameras. In fact, the next closest in terms of movement is Cleveland’s sinkerballer Justin Masterson (4.36). Deduno’s fastball’s vertical movement more closely resembles a splitter than it does a standard fastball. Not surprisingly, because of the pitch’s action, Deduno has been able to get nearly 70% of all fastballs put into play to be beaten into the ground. The next closest pitcher in that category is St Louis’s Jaime Garcia (55%). Of course, the downside to Deduno’s heat is that he exhibits little control over its final destination. He throws his fastball in the zone less than 50% of the time. Mauer said that his approach is to sit down the middle and let the natural movement take over. Watch the action of his fastball at the :23 second mark of this video: Mauer sets up down the middle and the ball runs across the zone and the left-handed hitting Alex Gordon is unable to make contact. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the movement of this fastball. The whipping action at the release will make the ball dance. Another reason for the movement is his fastball grip. Consider what Stephen Strasburg demonstrates as his four-seam fastball grip: Download attachment: strasburggrip1.jpg Note the thumb positioning on the seam. Pitchers have variations on this placement, like putting their finger on the leather rather than the seam or curling their thumb in as well. Deduno takes the latter to the extreme. Take a look at the way he holds his fastball: Download attachment: Deduno.jpg Deduno’s thumb is essentially at a right angle when he holds the ball. In the example above, the thumb is placed in a position to provide stability and improve command. Meanwhile, Deduno’s grip exchanges control for movement. Rather than the pad of the thumb making contact with the ball, the side of Deduno’s thumb is finessing the ball. This is better highlighted in a comparison of rotation-mate Kevin Correia’s grip. Download attachment: kevin-correia-twins.jpg Download attachment: Deduno2l.jpg To be sure, Deduno’s grip is not exclusive to him. In just the Twins stable of pitchers alone, Jared Burton and Scott Diamond both have similar grips on their fastballs, both of who have had decent success with the pitch as well. Deduno’s impressive if not erratic fastball has been one of his keys for success in 2013. While we may not understand how he flirts with disaster with his inability to target the strike zone consistently, we can see that what he hurls at home plate is very difficult to hit and the reason why he has a 3.32 ERA through seven starts. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: USATSI_7905961.jpg As the season progresses and the availability of real live center fielders decreases, Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire has been lowering standards for center field qualifications -- such as "he smells like a center fielder" and "he reminds me of a young John Fogerty". Chris Parmelee has been the latest infielder to play the most defensively significant outfield role. There is no question that Parmelee is swinging a burning hot bat right now -- having gone 16-for-35 over the last 10 games -- which calls for his inclusion somewhere in the lineup. After his performance in Texas, Gardenhire admitted that there may be more lineup cards submitted with Parmelee’s name next to CF. “He reads balls good and gets good jumps on them,” Gardenhire told reporters afterwards. Now with Joe Mauer suffering the dreaded oblique injury during Tuesday night's game, the Twins’ manager could find a new infielder to use in center, however, Chris Colabello was recalled from Rochester -- a likely substitute for Mauer at first -- leaving Parmelee free to roam the outfield. Is Parmelee’s bat really worth the head- and heart-ache of playing center field? Parmelee has proven to be a streaky hitter in his tenure with the Twins. No sooner did I hit "publish" on a post that highlighted the mechanical changes he implemented that were going to increase his power levels three times over, he went into a slump of epic proportions. After going 8-for-25 with two home runs over his first six games back with Minnesota, he went 7-for-48 over the next 19 games (but, hey, two more home runs!). OK then. In many ways, Parmelee is the inverse of Brian Dozier. Dozier has been creaming pitches left up in the zone. Parmelee, just the opposite. The heat map below provided by ESPN/trumedia shows the location of the hitters' extra base hits: Download attachment: Parmelee vs Dozier.png Polar opposites, right? Parmelee’s swing is also very susceptible to being pitched up and out over the plate where he swings and misses the most regularly (and where Brian Dozier would deposit the pitch into the left field bleachers): Download attachment: strike-zone (31).png Parmelee showed a tendency to swing (but not necessarily chase anything above the zone) at pitches left up in the zone during his cold spell. Teams attacked those spots to great success. Last night’s first plate appearance demonstrated well Parmelee’s success on pitches down in the zone. Here he takes a James Shields’ off-speed pitch located down in the zone, keeps his weight back and drives the ball into the left-center field gap for a double: Download attachment: Parmelee Double.png Part of the reason why he does so well on low balls is that his swing path follows a golf-swing pattern which allows him to hit that zone better. While certainly not textbook, his back shoulder drops (as seen in the example below) and his bat head tilts in his swing which makes it more difficult for contact at pitches up in the zone. Download attachment: Parmelee Down.png It is because of this swing that Parmelee has the sixth highest fly ball rate (52%) which is well above his career norm (43%). Download attachment: Parmelee Up.png Teams are not stupid; they see the same data and video on Chris Parmelee. Pitchers will continue to attack at Parmelee’s weaknesses and avoid his strengths. Parmelee, to avoid falling into another valley, needs to focus on his strength -- drive the pitch down in the zone when it is there -- and try to lay off those pitches up in the zone. Click here to view the article

Sam Deduno has a curveball that would be easily classified as “filthy” by baseball jargon standards but his fastball is “crazy” – at least by his own admission. According to a story from Rochester, the Red Wings pitchers were introducing themselves and speaking about their best pitches. When it was his turn, the 28-year-old right-hander from the Dominican introduced himself by saying “Sam Deduno and I have a crazy fastball.” Not crazy in the sense of a Aroldis Chapman 100 mile per hour fastball which is by you before you even get your feet set in the batter’s box, mind you. More like Nuke LaLoosh-fastball-off-the-mascot crazy. TexasLeaguers.com’s strike zone graph of Deduno’s fastball shows how this pitch is more like a shotgun blast than a precision sniper rifle: Download attachment: Deduno_Fastball.jpg His breaking stuff is without doubt his best pitch and he leans heavily on it. Overall, opponents are hitting just .176 off of his curve and nearly 40% of his match-ups have ended in a strike out when throwing his curve for the last pitch of the at bat. With a sharp, quick bend, Deduno has gotten plenty of out-of-zone chases and missed a good amount of bats – just ask the Indians’ Johnny Damon how good that curve is after he struck out on one that hit the dirt almost five feet shy of the plate. Despite the impressive rate, over time opponents will likely stop chasing after the curve if he is unable to locate his fastball consistently. So far, Deduno has walked 16 batters in his 23 innings, which is a lot of baserunners and a lot of extra pitches. He has averted dangers by keeping those baserunners from scoring by stranding 85% of them - a rate that is well above average and is ripe for regression. When asked about the possibility of being “effectively wild” has helped the pitcher limit the Indians to one run on just two hits Saturday night, Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson joked “Ask Mauer, he says it’s like catching R.A. Dickey.” Sure, just like Dickey – give or take nearly 20 miles an hour of velocity between his knuckleball and Deduno’s fastball at 93. Because of the movement, Pitch F/X data suggests that he has two fastballs – a four-seamer and a cutter –but catcher Joe Mauer said that isn’t the case. It’s the same fastball claims the Twins backstop, who described the pitch as “unpredictable.” So how did Deduno’s battery mate attempt to corral the erratic heat? “With him I kind of just sit in the middle and tell him to aim down. Some will cut, some will sink. If it’s tough to catch, it’s probably hard to hit.” The Twins say they have seen improvements in the command of his fastball over the course of his four starts. Heading into his start against Cleveland, Deduno’s “four-seam fastball” (as categorized by Pitch F/X) was located in the strike zone less than 50% of the time. Following the seven inning performance, that rate is now above that mark at 50.3% indicating that he is making some progress. Again, while Mauer says there is no difference in his fastball types, Pitch F/X categorizes the one that cuts as a “cutter”. This version of his fastball was only thrown in the zone 39.3% of the time, a rate well below average and a sign that he still has work to do. The incremental improvement in his fastball comes as a result of added work with Anderson. Between starts, Deduno throws not one but two bullpen sessions. One of which, says Anderson, is to focus strictly on the fastball. In addition to getting a feel for the command of the pitch, Anderson also tries to keep in on his line and smooth out some of his mechanics. Although he may have some work to do harnessing his “cutter” version of his fastball, the progress - if measured in his seven inning, two-hit outing against Cleveland - has been encouraging so far. Click here to view the article

Concerns over Joe Mauer’s defense has grown exponentially as the number of opposing kleptomaniacs have continued to accumulate more and more bases. A one-time Florida State quarterback recruit, earlier in his career Mauer had thwarted over 30% of would-be base-stealers but has seen that number drop to league average as injuries and age have taken a toll on him. This year, however, that rate has dropped to a league-worst six percent – stopping just three runners with his own arm. What’s more is that the opposition’s appetite to motor on the basepaths has increased significantly too. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/MauerRunningGame.jpg Prior to yesterday afternoon’s matinee against the Mariners, Associated Press reporter Jon Krawczynski relayed on Twitter that manager Ron Gardenhire said that Mauer’s caught stealing decline had nothing to do with his arm, rather the source of his struggles had to do with his slow slidestep when positioning for a throw down to second. Meanwhile 1500ESPN.com’s Phil Mackey provided further details of what the manager was seeing in his All Star catcher: Reviewing the limited MLB.com archive video clips available of Mauer throwing down to second, there definitely is evidence of what Ron Gardenhire was speaking towards Mauer’s mechanics. The first clip is over Mauer attempting to throw out Maicer Izturis of the Angels. Liriano’s fastball is up in the zone and gives Mauer a good chance at nailing the trailing running in the double steal but the throw skips into center field when Alexi Casilla cannot handle the hop. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Mauer_4_12_12.gif The next clip is Mauer throwing out Detroit’s Brennan Boesch – one of three times he has done so in 2012. Now, Boesch is not much of a base-stealing threat so it is possible that Mauer was caught flat-footed because of that but, just like in the clip above, Mauer is on his heels and stands straight up then pivots his feet. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Mauer_7_2012.gif Now compare Mauer’s current form against a couple of examples from his past. This first clip is from 2010 in which Mauer nails the Royals’ Chris Getz in his attempted thievery. Note how he starts to slide his backside out before receiving the pitch, getting his body into the throwing position. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Mauer_9_6_10.gif Similarly, in this 2008 matchup between the Twins and Padres, Mauer nabs Jody Gerut at second and slides his backfoot/backside into a position while receiving the ball rather than waiting on the ball to come to him before getting into the throwing position. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Mauer_2008.gif Essentially, Mauer’s footwork is costing him valuable nanoseconds and, quite likely, some mustard on his throws down to two as well. And opposing teams and their stopwatches and scouts are clearly picking up on this – which is why they are averaging nearly a stolen base attempt in each of his games behind the plate. That is a huge increase from his younger days. With no clear-cut explanation for why he has been tardy with his footwork, it is hard to determine how this affects this Twins. Obviously, the injury to his knee -- which may have played a role in a slow start at the plate this season -- may still be lingering. In that case, it could be a financial disaster for the Twins who are paying him to be an elite up-the-middle defender in addition to his offensive contributions. Then again, it could simply be the rust of having not played catcher as regularly. Either way, as Gardenhire said, it will be almost impossible to get this repaired in-season. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: USATSI_7941283.jpg For the Minnesota Twins, Oswaldo Arcia represents the promise of a better tomorrow. With the candles from his 23rd birthday cake still smoldering, Arcia’s exquisite power display in fewer than an entire season’s worth of baseball games has been a refreshing welcome to a fan base that has not had many legitimate offensive prospects to rally around since Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Historically, his power numbers at this age rank among some of the best Twins’ sluggers. So far, his career .451 slugging percentage prior to the age of 24 falls behind only Kent Hrbek, Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer and Tom Brunansky. With just under a year until his next birthday, the left-handed Arcia is poised to jump over several of those hitters as he grows more comfortable with the league’s pitching. There are some who feel that Arcia still has a few more improvements to make before he is considered a complete hitter. Swing Hard In Case You Hit It If you are reviewing his Fangraphs.com profile, the most obvious area in need of attention is his plate discipline. After managing 23 walks in 378 plate appearances in 2013, Arcia has drawn two walks this season. It is because of this that his on-base percentage is very one-dimensional and reliant on his ability to hit safely. (With a batting average on balls in play at .391 this year, it will be hard to have a sustainable on-base percentage without mixing in a few walks.) Arcia has the tendency to expand the strike zone, trying to cover everything from 952 to 651 at times, which has led to strikeouts in nearly 30 percent of his plate appearances. More than anything, when backed into a corner -- say, with a two-strike count -- Arcia comes out swinging which means hacking at pitches outside the strike zone. Last season Arcia was a first-pitch monster. He batted .379/.400/.724 with three home runs and a double on the first pitch of his plate appearances. Pitchers threw him a hefty number of fastballs (57%) and stayed in the strike zone (49% zone%). As advance scouts and video preppers recognized this trait, opponents altered their approach in 2014. Now he rarely sees a fastball (43%) or pitches in the strike zone (41%) to start an at-bat. Rather than changing his game plan, Arcia has actually swung more in first-pitch counts this year while seeing fewer premium pitches to drive. Pundits like to talk about guys who demonstrate “max effort” swings. Carlos Gomez, who swings out of his shoes on every pitch, personifies this idea. Even as he morphed into an offensive threat, Gomez’s swing rate, chase rate and contact rate all ranked well below average. Arcia falls into this camp as well. When Arcia commits, there is little indecision -- he is swinging for all or nothing. Without sacrificing his powerful and aggressive swing, he needs to learn which pitches he can handle in what circumstances. Mechanical Or Mental Adjustments? It seems there is be a hole in his swing that teams can and will exploit. During a recent Fox Sports North broadcast, former player and FSN analyst Roy Smalley pointed out that Arcia’s mechanics suffer from a hitch that is causing significant issues with his ability to handle pitches up in the zone. What Smalley highlighted was that Arcia’s hands started high... Download attachment: USATSI_7225016.jpg ...but dropped slightly above his waistline when he brings his bat to load (the position right before bringing the bat forward): Download attachment: USATSI_7940940.jpg As the hands drop, his ability to make solid contact on high strikes decreases considerably. According to ESPN/trumedia, this year alone he has swung at 28 pitches up in the zone and missed on 15 of his swings and put the ball in play on just four swings. The example below from Sunday’s broadcast shows Arcia’s swing plane attempting to catch up to a high changeup: From the lower vantage point Arcia needs to bring the bat up allowing for small impact zone. As Smalley championed during the game, Arcia does not necessarily have to change his swing -- he just needs to recognize pitches and understand his limitations. A high fastball is going to give him issues. Cheating for high fastballs is going to leave him susceptible to slow breaking balls. This goes back to improving his plate discipline. As pitchers shift their offerings and attack certain holes, Arcia will need to make adjustments. There is no question Arcia has the makings to be one of the top offensive talents to emerge from the Twins system. As part of the development process, improving his plate discipline and protecting against his weaknesses should entrench him as a middle-of-the-order threat for years to come. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Parmelee.jpg Only eight short months ago, Chris Parmelee was the talk of what was left of this baseball town in the aftermath of a 99-loss season. A September call-up, straight from Double-A no less, Parmelee went out and mashed pitching at the major league level. In a short span of time, he impressed people by demonstrating a keen batting eye, an excellent line drive swing and was able to put the occasional charge into the ball. He seemed immune to the crumbling franchise around him. While the other youngsters of the team, reportedly referred to as “the fun bunch”, enjoyed simply being called major leaguers, Parmelee went out and produced, even when the outcomes did not matter. He was an oasis in what has become a prospect-less desert for the Twins. His impressive spring training performance the following March (combined with Justin Morneau’s uncertainty) only served as fuel the discussion that this kid was ready to join the big league club full-time. However, after the same amount of games in 2012 as he had in the 2011 season, Parmelee’s results are vastly different. Last year in 88 plate appearances, he raked to the tune of .355/.443/.592. In 79 plate appearances this year, he is checking in with a .205/.266/.301 batting line. The first is that the opposition has concocted a game plan. At the end of September of last year, I forewarned that the scouts would be vicious on Parmelee, targeting his weak spot out over the plate. Opponents have stayed away from the left-handed first baseman this year, giving him fewer pitches middle-middle and middle-low where he was driving the ball a year ago. As such, he is swinging at pitches he did not do so with regularity in September. The second reason Parmelee’s numbers are down is that he is having some mechanical issues at the plate. During a recent broadcast, former Twin and FSN commentator Roy Smalley accurately noted that Parmelee was opening up far too quickly with his hips, causing his bat speed to drag through the zone. Sure enough, video replays confirmed this. This makes it particularly more difficult to get to pitches on the outer-half – where, as noted above, pitchers have been targeting him - and drive them with authority. Last, perhaps in response to the opposing teams pitching him better or because he has been pressing while slumping, his lauded plate discipline has all but disappeared. In 2011 he drew 12 walks to 13 strikeouts but has managed to coax just 4 free passes to 20 strikeouts this season. Prior to the 2010 season, Parmelee’s track record is indicative of someone who has the tendency to whiff a bit. From 2006 through 2009, he struck out in 21.5% of his total plate appearances. From 2010 to 2011, he shaved that down to a more manageable 15%. So it is possible that Parmelee, who has struck out in roughly 25% of his plate appearances this year, has reverted back to his old ways once the competition caught up to him. Pitchers have also thrown him fewer in-zone pitches as well this year (dropping from 46% to a below average 38%) and Parmelee, who has a disciplined eye, has increased his rate of chasing after pitches out of the strike zone – also likely a byproduct of (1) game plan changes and (2) trying to break out of a slump. While those are three explanations behind why Parmelee has not been producing in 2012 - his plate discipline being the most troubling -there are reasons that may lead one to believe he can rebound from this slow start. The first is his high baseball aptitude. For statheads, this sounds like jargon (and rightly so) but in this case, it refers to his ability to make adjustments. In the minors he worked with his coaches to change his swing from an upper-cut variety to a more level swing. As such, his line drive rate increased as did his batting average in the latter minor years. If he is able to adapt under those circumstances, he is likely able to adjust to how the opposition is game planning him – work on keeping those hips in and driving pitches on the outer-half. Secondly, and more importantly, when he does connect, he is hitting a high percentage of line drives. A year ago, he hit a high amount of line drives (19%) and was blessed with an unsustainable .390 batting average on balls in play. It was not just the line drives that were finding turf, his grounders and fly balls found empty real estate just as frequently and well above average. This, by the way, is not unusual in a small sample size. So far in 2012, Parmelee has hit a higher percentage of line drives (23%) but the BABIP gods have eschewed him, giving him a .283 batting average on balls in play. Those ground balls and fly balls have now found their way to defenders (perhaps a result of teams being about to position better against him). If Parmelee corrects his discipline and maintains that high line drive rate, balls will begin to find vacant land once again. The bigger question is can the Twins wait on that to happen at the major league level? In the end, Parmelee may be better served with a stretch in Rochester to right his course. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Mauer2.jpg Joe Mauer’s noble effort to obtain his fourth batting title was thwarted when those cyborgs known as Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout were unrelenting at the season's end. That notwithstanding, this has been an outstanding rebound season for the Twins catcher. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Considering the slow start by his standards, his .320 average heading into the last day of the season is impressive nonetheless. At the beginning of May, his average was down to .270 before he checked into the Rip City Motel and hit .336 over his last 115 games. A closer inspection of his numbers reveals something very interesting that you might want to sit down for. For the first time in his major league career Joe Mauer pulled the ball more often than he went the other away with the pitch. I’ll let you digest that for a moment because it seems so improbable compared to what we have become accustom to. Between 2004 and 2011, Mauer accumulated 447 hits going to left field. That was the fifth highest total in that time behind preeminent going-the-other-way hitters in Ichiro, Derek Jeter, Michael Young and Juan Pierre. Still, no one had a higher average when going oppo than Mauer’s .436. His ability to inside-out a pitch or drive a fastball on the outer half the other way has had its rewards for the Twins catcher. It was that methodology that helped him obtain three batting titles while having five seasons with an average over .300. Although he still went to left field with a high percentage of his balls in play and had plenty of success on them (a .432 average when going oppo in 2012), it was his improvement when pulling the ball that helped him raise his average from the career-low .287 average he possessed in 2011. Starting in late 2010, according to Twins hitting coach Joe Vavra, Mauer’s knee ailments were keeping him from “getting off his backside” on his swing. This led to him being “unable to turn on the ball.” With his health returning, Mauer seemed much better at turning on pitches. At BaseballProspectus.com, this Pitch F/X chart shows just how much better he was when swinging at pitches down-and-in and middle-down: Download attachment: Mauer.jpg A year ago, he was 6-for-21 (.286) on pitches in the down-and-in quadrant. This year he has been 21-for-43 (.488). In 2011, Mauer pulled the ball 25.3% of the time – down from his career average closer to 30% - and he hit just .242 when going to the right side of the field. This year, he turned on the ball 32% of the time and posted a .310 average. Now, he still beat the ball into the ground over 80% of the time in both season but this year, he was having a higher success rate of sneaking those through the infield – likely a direct result of better struck balls because of a strong base. Click here to view the article

Chris Colabello is a player who refuses to take a hint when he is no longer wanted. This past winter, the Twins were up against a roster crunch and decided that Colabello, who hit below .200, accumulated a waist-high pile of strikeouts and had positional inflexibility, not to mention he was at an advanced age for a prospect, was expendable. When they signed catcher Kurt Suzuki in December, they negotiated with a Korean team to move Colabello off the 40-man roster. If he agreed, Colabello would receive upwards of a million dollars -- well above the amount he stood to make playing with the Twins and the pittance he made in independent ball.Of course, playing professional baseball on the Korean Peninsula was not Colabello’s lifelong dream. He stayed with the Twins, even if that meant another season in the minors or the possibility of being cut in spring training. This plight had become standard practice for Colabello in his career. A career that almost ended before it started when the Worcester Tornadoes of the Cam-Am League released him after eight at-bats in his first season to make room for a backup catcher. In 2006, he was cut from the Italian team in the World Baseball Classic, then later dropped by the Detroit Tigers after a spring training tryout the same year. Obviously the snow has not even completely melted from the northern cities but, after a fast start which included sharing the American League’s Player of the Week with the Angels’ Josh Hamilton, Colabello is starting the 2014 season like he wants the Twins to regret even considering the idea of moving him just a few months ago. From the Beer Leagues to the Major Leagues Colabello’s discovery almost sounded like pure happenstance. “One of our scouts in the northeast, John Wilson, had got a tip that there was a guy over there,” Twins general manager Terry Ryan said last year when he was summoned to the show. “Of course [Colabello] continued to put up number after number, year after year, and was worth a look. And John went over and took a look and I think that year he was named the Independent League Player of the Year, all that good stuff. Ok, this guy deserves an invite to minor league spring training. He got down there, he was pretty good. He started in Double-A and never really had an off-week.” For seven years, Colabello toiled in the Cam-Am League, bouncing between Worcester and Nashua. Toiled might be putting it lightly. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire joked that the slugger came from the beer leagues, and he’s not far off. Nashua, the team Colabello played for 43 games in 2007, had Olympic skier, Bode Miller, play one home game each year from 2006 to 2008. While Miller had six at-bats and five strikeouts, the New Hampshire native and baseball sideshow failed to generate interest. The team was eventually evicted from their stadium in 2009 for failing to pay rent. Meanwhile, Worcester, whose nickname came from a tornado which ravaged the community in the early 1950s and the team Colabello had played with for his 540 other games in the league, folded for unceremonious reasons similar to the Nashua team. In 2012, the season after the Twins plucked (or was it saved?) Colabello from the Massachusetts town team, the Worcester Tornadoes had their charter revoked for being unable to pay for uniform cleaning. The collapse of the Tornadoes did not come before one last Hail Mary scheme, however. In April of 2012, the team reached out to baseball pariah, Jose Canseco, hoping that the former major leaguer’s diminishing star would help ignite some local interest in the club. While being compensated $14,000 a month, more than quadrupling Colabello’s monthly take in his final year in Worcester, the toxified outfielder could not find enough juice to buoy the sinking franchise and the 47-year-old hit just .194 with one home runs in 74 at-bats. In that season’s final weeks, even the team’s uniforms were repossessed and the players were forced the finish the year in generic loaner unis for the last few games before the team was shuttered for good. So, yeah, just for surviving that league for seven years you could say Chris Colabello deserved a minor league invite at the very least. How exactly does a player of Colabello’s offensive aptitude not only fall through the cracks but manage to avoid detection from other major league organizations for almost a decade of success in the lower ranks? “It happens,” Ryan said bluntly. “There are numerous players who are from the independent leagues who are on big league clubs who fell through the cracks. Some players who are in minor league baseball do not get opportunities because there is a bigger draft in front of them or something like that so then all of a sudden they start losing confidence. Before you know it, they get released and then they get signed by the [st. Paul] Saints or somebody and they get there and they play well.” It is not as if Colabello was a mythical Hobbsian-type hitter who was injured and finally healed enough to tear the cover off the ball. He went vastly unnoticed in his amateur career, failing to draw interest in a pool of thousands of other high school and collegiate players -- mainly because he played out of a little known Division II school in Worcester. (Knowing where the ballpark was certainly made the transition to the Cam-Am League a little easier.) No, Colabello constantly tinkered and improved his approach, acknowledging the ever-evolving tango between pitcher and hitter. “I’ve always had this desire to be complete in terms of being a hitter,” Colabello told me this spring. “To be able to do what the best hitters in the world have done and that means, in my humble opinion, means hit .300 and 30-plus home runs a year.” Those are lofty goals for a player who was two years removed from playing against washouts and pitchers whose hopes of seeing a major league stadium involved buying a ticket. Colabello, however, said it was always putting in the work at the field, in the cages and at the tee, which helped him improve physically, and constant game-planning that propelled him into the position where he is at today. Unlike some of his fellow employees who were drafted or signed massive bonuses and have a safety net of a large investment by ownership supporting them and knowing that they will have every opportunity to succeed, Colabello has been afforded no such luxury. If he did not produce, the Twins could send him back to what is left of the Cam-Am League, no worse for the wear. “If I’m getting stagnant that means I’m getting worse. I want the ability to do everything and to be able to have the clearness mentally to be aware of that and want to do it is the first step.” In the minors, Colabello started to feel the pitchers were attacking him on the inside half of the plate. In response, he started to back away from the plate. This led to him driving the ball with authority to the opposite field -- something that is not typical of undeveloped players, said Terry Ryan. “There are a lot of people who like to see an opposite field hitter when they are younger because you know guys will eventually learn to pull -- very rarely does a hitter learn to hit the other way with authority when they are 28 or 29,” Ryan said of Colabello’s approach. When he reached the Twins, Colabello was an opposite-field machine, slugging over .750 when going to right as four of his seven home runs left the park in that direction. But when he pulled the ball he wound up batting just .194 with little power. Something was not clicking. “As last year progressed I started to get more and more confident in my ability to drive the ball over the wall that way, that pulling the baseball became an afterthought,” Colabello said. “It almost got to the point where I wanted to pull the ball or needed to pull the ball, that I got so confounded by that, that I was in search of it for a while.” “I’ve watched guys like Miguel Cabrera, for one, and the Albert Pujols of the world and to be able to see them drive the ball over the walls to all three parts of the field and still maintain the ability to hit .300, that’s pretty amazing. I always looked at that and said ‘wow’. I’ve been a guy who could hit .300 in Indy ball and at the minor league level and I had this aspiration to continue to improve and figure out how they did that. And I think that has been the evolution of me as a hitter.” “I think it is really just a comfort thing.” Much has been made on the televised broadcasts of Colabello moving closer to the plate in his stance. When the subject was broached, the right-hander shook his head and shrugged. “I think that varied a lot. I feel like because I’m long and my stance is open that they thought I was further away than I was. I watched guys like [Dustin] Pedroia and Ryan Braun stand on the other side of the box sometimes when they knew guys were throwing them in but I think what happened more than anything else is that I did not have the awareness to make the adjustments when I needed to or the comfort level to say that ‘ok, I can still get to this ball’ because things were going a little too fast.” “In Triple-A, one day I might get closer or one day I might get further away and it is really depended on how I felt that they were going to attack me or patterns that I saw and I think that is part of the self-awareness thing. I think at the big league level last year I had gotten to the point at [Rochester] that I had gotten so comfortable being off the plate that I hadn’t even realized how far I was. I used to stand on the inside white line.” Colabello acknowledged that one of the reasons that he was frequently heading back to the dugout after a fruitless at-bat had a lot to do with being uncomfortable and not fully prepared for what was coming at him. As he said, the game moved fast. That, and the sheer impressive talent that existed on the mound at the major league level. He cited the handiwork of Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Anibal Sanchez as a lingering memory for him. The pair matched up four times in 2013, once in May and three times in August. On each occasion, the results were the same: a Sanchez strikeout. Download attachment: USATSI_7279776.jpg What Sanchez demonstrated to Colabello was the uncanny ability to unleash a low-80s changeup in any situation -- first-pitch, up in the count, behind, it didn’t matter. Fixating too much on that pitch allowed Sanchez to buzz his low-90s fastball at the knees. This was an awakening for Colabello, recognizing that he would need to tighten up his plan if he wanted to succeed at this level. “There are definitely physical things that you become aware of every day but that only enhances your mind’s ability to become confident.” For hitters uninitiated into the major leagues, the prolonged slumps can be deflating. “I think part of what makes me a good baseball player is my mental ability to play the cat-and-mouse games with the pitchers and I felt like that was very far off from what I was doing in Triple-A and Double-A there year before where I went up to bat when I had plans,” Colabello said of his 58 strikeouts in 181 plate appearances last year. “You are going to go through times as a hitter where you get away from your plan or your plans kind of skew, but it is all based on results which, at the end of the day, the game for a hitter, it is more than the results: it is about the process.” The game is focused on output and production. A hitter’s value is tied to his ability to reach base, avoid outs, score and drive in runs. With this constant scrutiny, hitters always know where they stand when they see numbers like their batting averages plastered wall-to-wall in every stadium. And they know when it is dropping lower and lower. They know when a manager’s confidence may be waning. They know when the front office may be discussing booking a flight back to the International League. The key, Colabello realized, was to focus on the process -- hitting the ball square and taking good at-bats -- and forgetting about the stretches when the hits don’t fall. “You can go oh-for-4 on any given day and hit the ball right on the button, every time,” he said transitioning into a near Crash Davis-esque soliloquy about the baseball gods. “Then there are days when you go 4-for-4 and not hit a ball square and break three bats so, realistically, what should give you more confidence, the fact that you squared four balls up or that you got four hits? The obvious answer is you squared four balls up but when you go home and look at the box score and you are aware that you are oh-for-8 or oh-for-12 or oh-for-20, it looms on you. I think maturity allows you to realize that, ok, it is not about that and I think that is what the best hitters in the world are capable of doing.” Colabello said he reached out to players, coaches, instructors, trainers, friends and anyone who would discuss hitting who could lead to an improvement. He tried to absorb everything he could. “I watched Joe [Mauer] be present all the time. That’s one of the biggest things I took from last year from watching him everyday that he’s so self-aware. So self-aware. And understand who he is and what he wants to do about as well as anyone in the game. I learned a lot from that, to be able to say this is who I am, this is what I’m going to do, this is how I’m going to handle it and not stray too far away from it.” Download attachment: USATSI_7364901.jpg Clearly modeling your style after a three-time batting champion is not a bad route to go. He already shares his patented opposite field stroke but would he consider stealing Mauer’s signature move of watching the first-pitch pass by? “Being a guy who is typically a middle-of-the-order guy, who is going to produce runs and try to hit the ball out of the ballpark, you have to get yourself in offensive counts and I think oh-oh is as offensive of a count as we get,” he said. “So if you get the chance to do some damage on oh-oh, for me, I’m going to let it go. I certainly think it is about keeping that in reason and understand how to not doing too much with it. I think most of my success came last year in oh-oh counts or hitter’s counts because that’s when you are suppose to do damage.” After doing damage in Chicago and Cleveland to start the season, Colabello has demonstrated that good things happen to those who work hard and are stubborn enough to keep hanging around. Click here to view the article

On the special holiday episode of The No Juice Podcast, Parker Hageman and Dan Anderson bring in guest Aaron Gleeman to discuss how to make it in America as a blogger. ​ Download attachment: logo.jpg In addition to having Aaron Gleeman discuss his Linkedin profile, you will hear tips on why you should avoid Minneapolis strip clubs if you are a Kansas City Royals pitcher, which baseball analytics websites to use for your ball guy analysis, a comparison between Joe Mauer and Ken Griffey Jr and reactions to the recently released All-Star Game hats. Listen below, on iTunes or Stitcher. THE NO JUICE PODCAST - EPISODE #12 Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Joe Mauer.JPG Heading into Tuesday’s game, Joe Mauer had played in 131 of the 141 games. That was quite a remarkable run considering the amount of time he missed just a year ago. Mauer, however, would not make it to game number 132 just yet as back spasms prior to the game would keep him unavailable. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Said Mauer after the game: "As soon as I got on the field to stretch, it just started to come on. It seemed the more I did the worse it got. Right before my BP group, I was trying to get loose, and was going to take some swings in the cage and I couldn’t even get to the cage, it just kind of locked up. It’s calmed down from earlier today, so it’s feeling a little bit better.” Mauer had been surging as of late, going 14-for-34 (.412) with five extra base hits over his last ten games played heading into Tuesday night. He is uncertain for Wednesday’s contest. Click here to view the article

On Monday against the Angels, Nick Blackburn, despite taking the loss in a 5-1 contest, provided the team with some assurance that he may be able to outperform the lowly expectations that have been outlined for him based on his track record the last two years. What has been the most impressive about his 2012 debut was his ability to miss bats. After all, at an 89.9% rate over the past two seasons, he has allowed more contact than any other qualified starting pitcher. It has been like his pitches are heat-seeking bat finders. However, with a healed elbow along with some minor modifications to his mechanical approach, Blackburn has seemingly turned a corner. This spring, the previously highly mashable right-hander held opponents to a 73% contact rate, says 1500ESPN’s Phil Mackey, a huge difference from his career rate. That trend continued into the home opener as Blackburn managed to fend off bats, obtaining a swing-and-miss on 7.1% of the total offerings. What’s more is his fastball, previously a strong candidate to get annihilated, actually missed six bats out of the 30 thrown on the cold April afternoon. Now, that certainly is not Liriano-like but for someone who has spent the past two years at the 4% mark, this is a significant step in the right direction. Let’s take a peek at his changes and see what, if anything, this may have done to improve his game and if this output might continue. At the beginning of March, Pioneer Press columnist Tom Powers noted that Blackburn had made two noteworthy changes to his approach: (1) shifting over to the third base side of the rubber and (2) switching to a higher, over-the-top arm angle. The first change is very apparent. In the first image, you see that Blackburn has started on the first base side of the rubber. In the ensuing shot, he has moved his starting position to the third base side. By his account, this is now enabling him to pound his fastball on the inner-half of the zone better to right-handed opponents. Download attachment: NB_rubber_2011.jpg Download attachment: NB_rubber_2012.jpg The second change, his arm angle, did not seem to stick with him through spring camp. In his televised spring training start against the Yankees, Nick Blackburn was seemingly throwing from a more over-the-top type arm angle versus his standard three-quarters release that we have been accustom to. Contrary to what was relayed this spring, in his first start of the season, Blackburn was actually throwing at a lowered release point this season than he did the previous one. The top image (from 2011) shows a slightly more tilted (read: higher) release angle than the second image (2012): Download attachment: NB_release point_2011.jpg Download attachment: NB_release point_2012.jpg Furthermore, the Target Field pitch f/x camera system concurs that, in addition to having his release point shift over several inches towards the right-handed batter’s box, it has also dropped a few inches as well: Download attachment: NB_pfxrelease_2011.jpg Download attachment: NB_pfxrelease_2012.jpg These changes have allowed Blackburn to hammer righties down and in, getting under their swing and avoiding the meaty part of the zone. According to Fangraphs.com’s heat maps chart, we see that on Monday (below), Blackburn pounded the inner-half of the plate with his two-seamer whereas the prior season (above), the majority of those pitchers were finishing out over the plate: Download attachment: NB_pitches_2011.jpg Download attachment: NB_pitches_2012.jpg Essentially, his off-season alterations have led to more pitching arm side movement of his two-seamer which dropping significantly as well. It’s easy to see with this type of spotting why Blackburn was able to generate an increase in his swing-and-misses and, not to mention, a decent uptick in ground ball production (a near 70% rate against Los Angeles). Of course, we have seen the feast-or-famine Blackburn act before, so it’s hard to say if he can continue this output over the duration of the season. Nevertheless, based on these findings, if he can maintain a swing-and-miss rate around 7% while keeping that ground ball rate at or above 60%, he could be in line for a much needed bounce back season. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: USATSI_7972268.jpg On Tuesday night it was announced that Minnesota Twins’ second baseman, Brian Dozier, would be participating in the Home Run Derby. Without question, it will be an honor for him to smack dingers at his home stadium, with his home crowd, and even his own brother pitching to him, no less. The event, where the game's most prolific home run hitters get to sit on the grass, some with their families, and admire the powerful swings while listening to ESPN’s Chris Berman say "back" five hundred and sixty-five million times is a unique experience. (Quick aside: A little word of advice that I'm fairly certain his brother Clay is aware of, the Twins’ second baseman likes to hit his home runs up in the zone: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/YV63dBXEuk08gOK_T9zVVP23I7z2U-dfshV6DJERFlRU1LxyD91P7P1CWhDz88Wzfv4TDn5Hs9lzKWHq091mSfk6LUaDPMPdXpJ17fejKNDTPy-huo57f477_1yiTBei1w So throw the ball there Clay, and try not to think about the fact that you will be GIF'd into eternity so everyone can laugh if you accidentally throw a pitch like 50 Cent.) No doubt, being added to the Home Run Derby is a wonderful thing to brag about on his Linkedin page but as a fixture on at the top of the order, Dozier is expected to be a table-setter, not a home run hitter. Unfortunately for the sputtering Twins offense, he has been more of the former and less of the latter recently. Dozier’s 65 runs scored still tops the American League but he has been plated 14 times over his last 29 games -- admittedly a product of those hitting behind him and not by his own inability to get on-base (.311 on-base percentage in that time). While he has been a solid on-base catalyst, he has not been able to carry the team like he did in the beginning of the year when he was jacking the jobs that landed him in the Home Run Derby. The power surge that helped him to 11 home runs by the end of May -- the 11th most in the AL at that time -- has slowed. What is going on? The biggest change is his results against fastballs. Dozier, who once feasted on fastballs, is now struggling to make contact and turn them into hits, let alone home runs. From April to June 5 he hit .331/.424/.622 and 9 HRs in 152 plate appearances versus fastballs. Since then he has batted just .115/.227/.250 with two home runs in 65 plate appearances. According to ESPN/trumedia's In-Play Heat Maps, Dozier has not performed as well against fastballs up in the zone (where he once thrived) since June 6: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/5Vhu1ZdfNG5BEVtkwqm8uvARjttA0xDJnzI2tKtTRzWTJECx7Yv8dqLItI6AJ1ZSzzVqx8wHhl4NkcnsiYbrt1DKAIE9jDPFv92Ti0CKwOezezo5s5MhdP34EMQF3eXzWw https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/UQQiqUY0zDppMPmtNdWh8GM7n3jpg_Zc5xiZZtl_qkMtmGpvlVnnY9ZOK_jrPr6cqRHmMoYBDa7G86fU8WVPUXa-37O3xzI7AIa79AIL76FrplgODm2SWiHGi51Js6yoLA Reviewing the batted ball performance, Dozier, who had once elevated fastballs thrown his direction (58% fly ball rate from April 1 to June 5), is now driving those same pitches into the ground (48% ground ball rate since June 5). There are no real significant changes in approach by the pitchers, either. He still sees a hefty amount of fastballs, plenty still left up in the zone. His mechanics are essentially the same -- there is no loss of the Tom Brunansky-inspired timing mechanism -- but there is an uptick in the number of times he has pulled the ball, a plausible explanation for why he is having issues on putting the ball in play on the inner-half while cheating and pulling pitches on the outer-half where pitchers are targeting him. Dozier understands the importance of success against the fastball at the major league level. "You don't succeed at this level by hitting breaking balls," Dozier told Sports On Earth’s Howard Megdal last month. "You succeed by not missing fastballs. And that's what I had to really come to terms with. Instead of trying to hit the hanger, you stick to your plan. Those guys are good on the mound, but they're not superhuman. They make mistakes." For the sake of the Twins’ offense, Dozier needs to start capitalizing on those mistakes again. [/hr]Since the Twins beat the Mariners last night, you can get half off your L or XL pizza on Wednesday by ordering online at PapaJohns.com with the promo code 'TWINSWIN'. Click here to view the article