Parker Hageman

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3668[/ATTACH]Congratulations, Mr. Hicks. You are going where few Minnesota Twins minor leaguers have gone before: Straight to the Opening Day starting lineup. Since the opening of the Metrodome in 1982, there have been just seven players in the Minnesota starting lineup to jump to from the minors to the Opening Day lineup: Jim Eisenreich, Chuck Knoblauch, Marty Cordova, Chad Allen, Cristian Guzman, Joe Mauer and Tsuyoshi Nishioka. While all of those aforementioned players produced strong numbers in the minor leagues, they faced increasingly challenging competition in the first season as the dossier on their strengths and weaknesses grew. Some -- like Knoblauch, Cordova and Mauer -- adjusted well. Others did not. This is a story from a free ebook that TwinsDaily is publishing on Opening Day that previews the Minnesota Twins 2013 season. To get your free copy, just make sure you follow @TwinsDaily on Twitter or Like our Facebook page. Why is it that players can seem so destined for greatness based on their minor league track records, struggle once promoted to the ultimate level? For starters, there is a lack of knowledge in the minor leagues which favors the hitters. Red Sox catcher Ryan Lavarnway explained to the Providence Journal’s Brian MacPherson exactly how difficult it is to create a strategy for minor league hitters. “Going into a game in the minors, you don’t know the hitters,” said the Red Sox catcher. “You’re kind of blind. In the big leagues, you have a game plan of how you want to go about it.” In the minors there are no Pitchf/x graphs or extensive collection of video to determine how to approach a particular hitter. There are no advanced scouts marking down every observation on how to best exploit a hitter’s weaknesses for the upcoming series. Players who have quality approach at the plate often see a fleeting rush of success at the major league level prior to reports circulating among the clubs. Teams will attack the strike zone with strikes. They will fire fastballs in fastball counts. Only once it becomes clear that a young player proves he is very capable of handling that assortment do pitchers start to pick around the plate and breaking off more benders when a fastball is expected. Then it is up to the hitter to make the adjustment. In many ways, what will be awaiting Hicks is the same process that both Chris Parmelee and Brian Dozier faced in 2012. When Parmelee came up in September 2011, he was punishing the ball all over the field. He saw few off-speed offerings in fastball counts. Teams rarely challenged him up-and-away. This performance continued into spring training but opponents began to cultivate a different game plan during the regular season and he scuffled more, only to be sent back to Rochester for additional tooling. Similarly, Dozier had some immediate success by driving plenty of fastballs to left field. That is, until teams picked up on his pull-happy tendency and moved their target to the outer-half of the zone. The same hitter who had once drew walks in 10% of his minor league plate appearances, was only able to finesse a free pass in 5% of his MLB plate appearances. Unable to adjust, Dozier’s numbers continued southward and in August, Dozier was headed eastward to Rochester. Hicks’ gaudy minor league walk rate does not necessarily mean that he is a strike zone savant or stingy with swinging at breaking balls in the dirt. Hitters that move up levels likely won’t see a significant amount of breaking balls – a product of a lack of advanced scouting. Sure, there is always the two-strike hook, but those should be anticipated at any level. As Hicks gets challenged more as the 2013 season progresses, we will see how disciplined he actually is. He is already prone to strike out (20% of his minor league plate appearances), so it is possible that he is going to K more frequently. Like all players before him, Hicks will need to be able to adapt to his opposition – which is easier said than done. You'll get to kick of Opening Day with your free @TwinsDaily Minnesota Twins 2013 Season Preview. Just add us to your Twitter feed by following us, or tell us you like us (we're pathetic like that). We'll publish a link to the free ebook on Opening Day on both sites.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3654[/ATTACH]Before the opener on Monday morning, Glen Perkins sat at his locker, lacing up a new pair of cleats. His locker’s location – one of four corner spots in the spacious clubhouse reserved for the pillars of the team like Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, a spot that once was home to Joe Nathan’s garb – is standing as a reminder of his status with the team. It is hard to envision now but not long ago it appear that his time in the Twins organization was nearing an end. Ineffectiveness, followed by a shoulder injury and topped with a semi-contentious battle regarding his arbitration status left him seeming like a pariah with the team. To observers, the left-hander who had grown up on the eastern edges of the Twin Cities and developed in the heart of Minneapolis for the Gophers looked to be on borrowed time. However, a switch to the bullpen combined with good health and a shift in his mental approach resuscitated his career with the Twins. And now? Now, he is one of the best relievers in the game. He won the organization’s Good Guy Award this past winter. He has a multi-year contract. He has been asked to play with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. He has a 5K which he and his wife organize, Fifteen’s 5K, which raises money to benefit Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He’s got nearly 16,000 followers on Twitter where his interactions range from telling someone the best way to prepare meat for the smoker to joshing that he switching from his current agent to Dwight Yoakam, in response to Robinson Cano’s switch to CAA that is partnered with Jay-Z. Plus - oh man - that coveted corner locker. There’s no question he is embraced in Minnesota. Over the past few years, the pitcher had become more analytical and thinking more about his craft, using sabermetric theories and tools as he wields the ball. Perkins says he has digested the information and ideas to add another level his game. Approaching a player and raising some timely statistical analysis is not a new shtick. In 2010, ESPN broadcaster Jon Sciambi wrote about his rather humorous encounter with Chipper Jones. The gist of it is Sciambi had presented Jones with some new data that the surefire Hall of Fame third baseman was not aware of: Jones had seen the fewest first-pitch strikes in the league. Sciambi wanted to know why the great hitter still swung at a high amount of first pitches seen. The data surprised Jones to the point where he circulated the findings around the clubhouse. The rest of the team, meanwhile, appeared well aware of this phenomenon. In a similar fashion Perkins, who was lacing up his fresh field kicks and readying himself for a new season of baseball, was asked if he was familiar with a recent study on Fangraphs.com. The piece studied Pitchf/x data for pitchers who had the highest percentage of pitches taken in the strike zone but was called balls. As the game’s foremost victim of squeezing, Cleveland’s Justin Masterson received the primary attention but Perkins was informed that he could find his name within the top ten as well. “So that obviously means I’m getting screwed,” Perkins replied a bit quizzically after being presented with the study’s synopsis. Well, yeah, by some measurements. The bulk of the data for the research was collected while Perkins was a starting pitcher, over 44 starts between 2007 and 2010. Still, that carried over into his first year as a full-time reliever. According to StatCorner.com’s data, in 2011, when opponents did not swing at in-zone pitches – those that are inside the strike zone as measured by Pitchf/x cameras – were called for a ball a whopping 25.7% of the time. By comparison, the rest of the league averaged 16.7%. A quarter of all pitches that should have been called strikes not being called strikes two years ago? Did the Perkins notice any of this? “To be honest with you, I feel like I get a pretty good zone. I mean, I throw in and I feel like there are some times when I get the pitches off the plate. I don’t feel like they are tight on me,” said Perkins. “I feel like my slider gets squeezed. Like I throw some on the inner half to righties that a catcher and it will be an inch or two in off the plate and that those catch the corner, the front corner of the plate, and sometimes I just don’t get those. That’s mainly it.” The speculation regarding his slider probably has some traction. After all, that cuts across the zone rather quickly, often making a catcher move and a hitter flinch. If you look at his strike zone map from TexasLeaguers.com which dates back to before the 2011 season, you can see quite a few of his sliders on the inside portion of the plate to righties were called for a strike. Conversely, there’s a significant grouping of sliders at the lower portion of the zone – right where Perkins senses he may be getting squeezed – that are literally borderline pitches that were not called for a strike. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3653[/ATTACH] Pitchf/x, a system of cameras designed to capture and catalogue the release point and where the pitch crosses the plate – while measuring velocity, spin and other data in-between – is not without its flaws. For starters, across baseball each stadium’s cameras are slightly different and therefore pump out slightly different results – some minuscule, some noticeable. Additionally, strike zones are not all the same for all hitters. That needs to be taken into account. So while Pitchf/x data suggests Perkins was hosed significantly in 2011, Inside Edge’s data refutes that. Their data – which is used by many major league teams including the Minnesota Twins and is compiled by video scouts – says that between 2011 and 2012, 90.9% (290 of 319 in-zone pitches taken) were called strikes compared to the 90.6% league average. Then there is the categorization of pitches. “I don’t ever throw changeups and it classifies them as changeups,” said Perkins. “If I go look at Brooks Baseball [brooksBaseball.net] after a game and I see it shows I threw two changeups, obviously I don’t throw that pitch so I know none of them are changeups.” While that aspect of the game has improved substantially, there are misses – such as Perkins’ slider being called a changeup. In 2011, Fangraphs.com’s Pitchf/x database says that 17.7% of his offerings were changeups. But even the human element gets fooled too. Fangraphs.com’s other pitch database, one provided by Baseball Info Solutions and their team of video scouts, says that he threw 1.4% changeups in 2011. Rather than being satisfied with the numbers stating he was getting screwed, Perkins continues to ask questions about the study. He wants to understand why instead of taking it at face value. Did the study break it down by pitch type? Is that available? He offers up several hypotheses as to why he may be getting squeezed, why Pitchf/x is not categorizing his pitch correctly and deliberates on the meaning of it all. This brought him full circle to his career’s rebirth which coincided with his exploration of a more analytical approach to the game. “I didn’t get into any advanced stats until 2010 when I was in Triple-A and struggling,” said Perkins. “It was a combination of [Ryan] Vogelsong and when Brandon McCarthy came back and I started to hear about those guys who were injured or unsuccessful and then they adjusted their pitch selections and focused doing different things. That got me thinking, maybe it’s something I should do.” It doesn’t hurt, too, that Perkins returned equipped with a mid-90s fastball whereas the other two starters barely get out of the 80’s -- quite the advantage before even considering the added layer of sabermetric insight. “Part of it is that I throw harder,” Perkins acknowledges, completely ignoring the fact that his slider bends through space and time. “But I know what I don’t want to do. I know what results I don’t want. You can’t obviously get ideal results across the board all the time, but I know that I don’t want to get fly balls and I don’t want to walk guys.” Of course, Perkins knows that there is more to his success than just knowing the sabermetric basics – like getting ground balls and not walking people. There needs to be an ability to execute pitches. Consider Brian Bannister. Prior to the emergence of McCarthy and Vogelsong, Bannister’s foray into the stat community drew attention but, ultimately, because of his natural ability limits Bannister could not practice what he preached as well as the other three pitchers. “It was: This is what I need to do. I knew early last year I had a higher ERA but I knew that I had given up base hits, I had given up a two-run homer to Hamilton, I knew that over time that if I continued to execute my pitches, my ERA would end up matching up with my FIP and that I do not need to change what I’m doing because I have an eight [ERA] 4 innings into the season. Over the course of the season – and it did -- it will even out.” Now, with his shoes fastened and prepared to join the rest of his team for warm-ups, Perkins concluded the advanced stats discussion with a refreshing simplification of the art that has inspired numerous websites to generate charts, graphs, theorems, percentages and raw numbers to better understand a position that teams pay millions upon millions for: “It is obvious stuff in hindsight, but keep the ball down, try to get ground balls, don’t give up fly balls and don’t walk guys.”

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3610[/ATTACH]Joe Mauer carries a lot of pressure on his knees, both physically and metaphorically speaking. Some of that is pressure a few of us can relate to, like being a newly married man with a family on the way (twins, no less). Most of it, however, we can’t. Like checking your bank account and seeing a figure which includes multiple commas or getting buzzed by a Chris Sale fastball followed by a slider that seems to bend through space and time. And the scrutiny that follows when you don’t deliver 30-plus home runs a season. ~~~ This is a story from a free ebook that TwinsDaily is publishing on Opening Day that previews the Minnesota Twins 2013 season. To get your free copy, just make sure you follow @TwinsDaily on Twitter or Like our Facebook page. ~~~ As the anchor of the lineup, Mauer’s knees carry the weight of the local baseball world. Physically, catching can definitely take a toll on the body, especially the knees, and that can certainly affect a player’s output at the plate. After the 2011 season, then-hitting coach Joe Vavra said in a radio interview that he noticed Mauer had troubles “getting off of his backside and favored his legs a bit” during his swing. To improve, Mauer focused heavily on strengthening his knee after that season and entered the 2012 season better prepared for the rigors of the position, and the numbers speak for themselves. The added offseason attention helped overall but he also demonstrated that he could continue to hit even while catching on a regular basis – a feat some felt was not possible as they plotted a new position for Minnesota’s highest paid athlete. In 2012 his offensive production when adorning the tools of ignorance far exceeded that when he wasn’t squatting in 2012. In 323 plate appearances last year while catching, he put up a triple-slash line of .365/.460/.493 with six of his home runs. The results were significant improved from over his 2011 season in which he hit .239/.328/.324 in the aftermath of his knee surgery. That said the knees may have been a factor behind his defensive decline in ’12. His caught stealing rate plummeted to a career low and the coaching staff attributed this to a mechanical change. “I don’t know if he’s throwing different but I think he’s had some injuries that have changed some of his mechanics,” manager Ron Gardenhire told reporters in camp. “His arm is still there, he’s still got a cannon. I think the tendencies are when you are not able to work on things like that a lot you get a little long with your actions.” One of the biggest questions is how many innings will Mauer play as a catcher. While Mauer has offensive acumen that would play anywhere on the field, having his bat at the catcher’s position greatly enhances his value to the team, allow someone with more traditional power to assume the first base or designated hitter role. Last year, in terms of innings played at the position, he ranked 26th among all backstops. One of the game’s ironmen, the Cardinals’ Yadier Molina, caught multiple games in a row for long stretches of time, maxing out at 12 in September. By comparison, Mauer’s longest streak was three games in 2012. With the addition of Ryan Doumit, it is conceivable that the days of Mauer hooking up the chest protector for more than 900 innings are behind him, but Gardenhire says the amount that Mauer spends behind the plate in 2013 is purely up to his star. With more time to heal and his admitted passion to catch, he could be more inclined to do so this year. The defensive abilities may simply erode with age but Mauer’s hitting will never come under question. If you are expecting a sudden home run outburst, that is probably never going to come to fruition. Because of his hitting style and ballpark that is not conducive to it, his home run totals will probably fall into the 10-to-15 range annually. Still, the on-base percentage and high average should continue so long as his is able to draw a breath. ~~~ You'll get to kick of Opening Day with your free @TwinsDaily Minnesota Twins 2013 Season Preview. Just add us to your Twitter feed by following us, or tell us you like us (we're pathetic like that). We'll publish a link to the free ebook on Opening Day on both sites. http://apps.startribune.com/most_popular/?cmd=inc&type=view&section=/sports/twins/blogs&story_id=200551031

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3596[/ATTACH]About a year ago, the Minnesota Twins left Florida with a roster of 25, bound for the Twin Cities and, ultimately, the basement of the American League Central. Quite a bit of turnover has occurred from that collection of individuals – a whopping 12 from the 2012 Opening Day roster are no longer with the organization. Several of those players caught on elsewhere but have deemed unfit to place on another team’s 40-man roster. A few of those are out of major league baseball. Among the departed is last year’s Opening Day starter (Carl Pavano, who remains unsigned because of a life-threatening injury sustained while shoveling), the team’s closer (Matt Capps, who was recently cut from the Cleveland Indians but was retained on a minor league deal), two of the five bench bats (Sean Burroughs, unsigned, and Luke Hughes, who last played in Australia) and their situational lefty in the ‘pen (Matt Maloney, who may not pitch much due to recovering from Tommy John surgery). Beyond that group, Opening Day third baseman Danny Valencia failed to catch on with the Baltimore Orioles this spring and will start the season with their Triple-A affiliate. Reliever Jeff Gray did not merit enough of a role to even make the Chicago White Sox’s 40-man either and will be stashed with their International League team as well. Think about that for a second. These were supposed to be either key contributors or maneuverable pieces that turned into flotsam and now a vast majority of the other 25 teams would not bend over to pick up for nothing. Just one year removed from the Twins evaluators determining these guys were among their best 25 players. [How did they ever win 66? It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle.] With the finalization of the roster occurring over the next few days, the Twins staff will be attempting to move on from a group that went 6-16 through the season’s first month. The objective of the offseason was to create a rotation that can keep the Twins in the game long enough to remain competitive but this year, the staff is having troubles identifying their number one guy as the Opening Day starting pitcher still remains unknown (but is widely believed to be Worley). Outside of Jamey Carroll, the bench will consist of athletically talented yet unproven players in Eduardo Escobar, Wilkin Ramirez and Darin Mastroianni. Maloney and Gray will be replaced in the bullpen with Tyler Robertson and Ryan Pressly, two guys who have 25 major league innings between the pair. While the success of the team is dependent on the rotation, the starting lineup and defense, depth plays a large role as well. Is this group solid enough to finish April at or near .500, let alone for the duration of the season?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3564[/ATTACH]On Thursday night, the Minnesota Twins showcased two of their potential starters for their remaining rotation vacancy – Liam Hendriks and Cole Devries. Together, the pair silenced the Yankees’ bats over eight innings, allowing just one unearned run over eight innings. Of course, spring training is not about the results but the process. For Hendriks, that process included peppering in more non-fastballs. As was discussed during the Fox Sports North broadcast, the Twins staff were looking for Hendriks to mix in more of his secondary offerings after he became what they felt was too reliant on his fastball during his last outing. “It was coming out of my hand well,” Hendriks told reports afterwards. “Curveball was good. Mainly slider to the righties, curveball to the lefties." Perhaps Hendriks’ biggest issue right now is his inability to shut down right-handed hitters. Last year, lefties slapped him around to the tune of .768 OPS. Righties, meanwhile, torched him with a 1.020 OPS. Among starters with a minimum of 30 innings against right-handed hitters, Hendriks’ .351 batting average was the highest in baseball. Against righties, he is a two-pitch pitcher, arming himself with a fastball and a slider. The slider, up to this point in his career, has been a detriment to his success. According to BaseballProspectus.com’s leaderboard, Hendriks’ slider created the lowest percentage of outs in baseball last year. His slider had “put away” just 4.1% of hitters on the times it was thrown, making it terribly ineffective. C.C. Sabathia, a Yankee sitting across the field from Hendriks yesterday, managed to retire 32% of his opponents on that pitch – the highest rate in baseball. It does not take a math major to realize there is a huge chasm between the results of Sabathia’s offering and the one Hendriks spins. Did we learn anything new from this most recent spring start? Probably not. After all, the Yankees only threw out three right-handed hitters against Hendriks: Kevin Youkilis, Eduardo Nunez and Francisco Cervelli. A literal non-Murderer’s Row of Yankee sluggers. Nevertheless, to his credit, with the exception of the fourth-inning walk to the shaved Youkilis, Hendriks did his job – none of the aforementioned righties reached base. I’ve cited several times over that one of Hendriks’s biggest issues is his slider and the coaching staff likely recognizes this as well. During his last bullpen session prior to the start, the 24 year-old struggled with his secondary offerings’ location. “During my bullpen, during my offspeed, I could not locate a single thing,” Hendriks told reporters. “It was disgraceful. [Anderson] said ‘Stay back, stay relaxed.’” Unquestionably, the curveball looked sharp. He maintained a strong 12-to-6 break with this pitch and kept the Yankees’ left-handed unit at bay, one that included renowned sluggers like Travis Hafner and World Baseball Classic winner, Robinson Cano. Hendriks’ fastball command helped set up that giant breaking ball and kept the lefties off-balanced for the duration of his outing. But there were occasions in while he seemed to lack the confidence in that pitch. During an early battle with Hafner, the Aussie held a 2-2 advantage but shook catcher Drew Butera off twice before throwing a fastball (a ball) and then followed it up with a second fastball (fouled off) before missing with a curve. The shake-off could have been a cat-and-mouse game of shaking off a fastball only to set up Hafner for the fastball still, however, his admittance of command issues of his breaking stuff in his recent pen session only seems to reaffirm the notion that Hendriks shook off a curve. If 2012 has any bearings on it, Hendriks has demonstrated that he shies away from his breaking stuff when he is ahead of the hitters. Look at his pitch breakdown from BrooksBaseball.com from last year: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3565[/ATTACH] What Hendriks needs is more confidence in his secondary pitches. He pitches backwards by throwing his non-fastballs out-front but he fails in the sense that he does not have a put-away pitch. Spotting his fastball will only get him so far. And, to this point in his career, that has meant success at Triple-A. With Samuel Deduno making a strong case for one of the two positions open in the rotation, the race is tightening between Hendriks and Devries.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3534[/ATTACH]It is probably an indictment of the Minnesota Twins’ rotation when the biggest conversation of the month of March is focused on the performance of a pitcher who is currently not on the team’s 40 man roster. As Mike Pelfrey, Vance Worley and Kevin Correia continue to turn in clunkers in the Grapefruit League, Samuel Deduno’s sometimes sloppy, sometimes dominating but always energetic outings in the World Baseball Classic -- including last night’s five inning, two hit, three walk and five strikeout victory – has captured many fans’ attentions back in the Upper Midwest. Despite not maintaining the same free and easy motion as he showed during his start against Spain earlier in the tournament, Deduno forged his way past the United States (even while walking in a run and facing several 3-0 counts) and then kept Puerto Rico at bay to help the Dominican Republic capture the World Baseball Classic title. What helped the right-hander up to and in the championship game was having a filthy curveball. This is nothing new for Sammy. Last year, Pitch F/X-ly speaking, he held one of the best curves in baseball – allowing an average of just .160 on the hook, 14th lowest among those who threw it 200 or more times. He was also one of the most frequent users of the curveball, by percentage. Throughout the World Baseball Classic he showed great confidence in this pitch. In his start against Team USA, Deduno had the misfortunate of not only loading the bases, but walking USA’s Eric Hosmer to give the home team an early first inning lead. With the bases still loaded, Deduno went to a full count on Adam Jones and sent him packing with a 3-2 curve for a called strike. Ballsy pitch. In another instance, he would go on to throw a 3-2 bender to his potential battery mate, Joe Mauer, only to get the catcher to roll over to the first baseman. You know how often Mauer had seen a 3-2 curve in 2012? Six times. Last night, of the 14 batters Deduno retired, nine of those came on his curve. When facing Puerto Rico’s Angel Pegan and a runner on second, Deduno spun a 3-2 curveball to get Pegan to turnover and knock into the second out of the inning. Two innings later, Deduno fell behind Jesus Feliciano and ultimately lost him on a curve out of the zone, he proved that he was not going to lay a fastball in there (if, you know, he’s capable of that). As I’ve repeated numerous times, Deduno has got electric stuff which has helped him defy statistical convention for success at the major league level. If opponents are unable to square up pitches and are constantly off-balance with curveballs in fastball counts, it is hard to drive home those hitters he walked. It’s a tightrope act but, so far, Deduno has pulled it off.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3513[/ATTACH]Technology is amazing, isn’t it? Sure, we’re missing the flying cars, moon colonies and hover boards but the fact that we all basically carry around personal computers/television sets that can make phone calls in our pocket is pretty mind-blowing. Baseball, while it may seem archaic with the bats made from trees and game play which doesn’t involve a time clock, is actually progressive and embracive of new technologies off the field. Not long ago, the Pitch F/X cameras installed at all stadiums opened up a whole new world of data to the general public. This new insight has provided teems of information on pitchers, hitters, umpires and, most recently, catchers. Suddenly, we know whose curveball gets the most swing-and-misses (AJ Burnett at 44.1%), whose fastball generates the most groundballs (Scott Diamond at 58%), and whose catcher can coax the most strikes on pitches just out of the zone (Jose Molina, 13%). For front offices, this seems like really important stuff, particularly when evaluating free agent talent. But baseball does not want to stop there. MLB has been working on going beyond just the batter-pitcher matchups by exploring the world of contact (Hit F/X) and defense (Field F/X). Once available, the latter will be able tell us who gets the best jumps, who positions themselves the best and who covers the most ground. The former, Hit F/X, will be able to provide details on what kind of contact is necessary for a towering home run, a line drive, an opposite field double, and so on. At the SABR Analytics Convention in Phoenix a week ago, Baseball America dispatched Matt Eddy to cover the event which discusses these forthcoming technologies. While there, Eddy was treated to a presentation from Graham Goldbeck, a data analyst from Sportsvision – the creator of the F/X systems. Goldbeck released some new information farmed out from the nearly 600,000 ball-in-play situations captured by their Hit F/X system. What Hit F/X does is tracks the batter’s contact point, batted ball speed, the horizontal spray angle (like a spray chart) and the vertical launch angle. From this, Goldbeck found that hitters who tend to make contact out in front of the plate have a greater tendency to hit from home run power than those who make contact deeper in the zone: This is analytical evidence of something that probably already knew from observation of two members of the Minnesota Twins who are on opposite ends of the spectrum: Josh Willingham and Joe Mauer. When it comes to Willingham, we knew one thing: He pulls the living fire out of the ball. Last year, his .487 isolated slugging percentage when pulling wash tied for sixth-highest in baseball. (Think if he had a more hitter-friendly home ballpark.) Why is he so good at pulling the ball? That is because he makes outstanding contact out in front of the plate, much like Goldbeck’s research suggests. Take a look at his connection point in this home run: http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/theeight_1363367962_Willingham.PNG Now, compare Willingham’s contact point to Mauer’s, who just sliced his patented left-field double. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Mauer.PNG Mauer has been one of the game’s foremost connoisseur of going the other way. Part of the reason behind that is that he can let the ball travel much deeper into the zone than Willingham has ever allowed. As such, the natural conclusion is that he would have a much harder time of reaching the same home run totals as Willingham because his swing is not conducive to generating the kind of power. Dingers aside, Mauer’s approach affords him superior contact rate over Willingham’s approach. Another thing that Goldbeck’s research said about Willingham is that he has one of the most consistent contact points. This means that he is susceptible to other pitch types or various locations away from his standard impact zone. As such, we see that he had a well-below contact rate average (75.9% versus 79% league average) in 2012 compared to Mauer who was well above that mark (87.8%). Additionally, although it is possible that Mauer may suddenly start hitting the ball out in front and launching dingers into the newly minted party deck in right field, the study suggests that the likelihood of this happening is low. It is rare for hitters to change their stripes: We’ve reached an age where we have a greater understanding of the game than ever before. We confirm why Josh Willingham can decimate Target Field while many other hitters cannot. We know that while everyone may wish for Mauer to take that step forward and hit home runs by the bushel, we are learning from the technology that it just simply may not be possible – that is, unless the left field fence is moved in 50 feet or so. Technology is amazing.