Parker Hageman

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
This article continues exclusively for Twins Daily caretakers. To become a caretaker and read the rest of the piece, you can subscribe here.

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
This article continues exclusively for Twins Daily caretakers. To become a caretaker and read the rest of the piece, you can subscribe here.

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
Since the dawn of baseball, hitters have minced fastballs thrown inside the zone. If you look at all the right-handed pitchers who made ten or more starts last year, Joe Ryan's fastball had a 16.8% swinging strike rate inside the strike zone. Ryan is out on the mound chucking very average velo fastballs and getting professional hitters to miss at a very high clip (10% is league average). He was 8th overall in that category – outpaced by names like Jacob DeGrom, Spencer Strider, and Hunter Greene but ahead of fastball luminaries like Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer.
Unicorn fastball, indeed. 
Ryan's biggest challenge was pairing an equally impressive secondary pitch to keep hitters from solving his fastball. Through his minor league experience, he was lauded for his fastball and curveball while his slider and changeup were considered incomplete. The Twins, however, have embraced the slider and have outfitted or improved many of those offerings in recent years. 
When describing his slider's profile early in the 2022 season, Ryan told Laurilia that he thinks "more cutter with it [as opposed to] creating a slider" as he throws it.
Cutter movement is beneficial because it is thrown firm and has later movement. MLB's average horizontal cutter movement is 3.0 inches (-3.0 for right-handed pitchers). That's what Ryan's slider was for the majority of the season.
But suddenly, in September, it was not. 
The shape or Ryan's slider change, and one can see that both statistically and on pitching break charts, and he had some other important changes, too. We would love for you to become a Caretaker so you can dive into that detail here. We can't pay writers enough to do that kind of deep dive just using ad revenue, so we reserve it for the Caretakers that support it.  
If you read Twins Daily, well, daily, maybe it's time to become a Caretaker. You'll love it. You'll get more meaty stories like this, plus get perks like Winter Meltdown tickets, and other special recognition. And you can join for as little as $4/moth. You can read all about it and signup here. 
Those benefits are all nice, but the real reason to sign up is this: 100% of all Caretaker money is channeled directly back into the site. By signing up to be a caretaker, you’re supporting writers you value, and enabling deeper dive Twins-specific content like this that isn’t dependent on ad revenue. We hope you’ll consider it. We expect you’ll love the benefits, and we would love to have you take the next step in supporting the Twins Daily community.

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
This article continues exclusively for Twins Daily caretakers. To become a caretaker and read the rest of the piece, you can subscribe here.

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
Since the dawn of baseball, hitters have minced fastballs thrown inside the zone. If you look at all the right-handed pitchers who made ten or more starts last year, Joe Ryan's fastball had a 16.8% swinging strike rate inside the strike zone. Ryan is out on the mound chucking very average velo fastballs and getting professional hitters to miss at a very high clip (10% is league average). He was 8th overall in that category – outpaced by names like Jacob DeGrom, Spencer Strider, and Hunter Greene but ahead of fastball luminaries like Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer.
Unicorn fastball, indeed. 
Ryan's biggest challenge was pairing an equally impressive secondary pitch to keep hitters from solving his fastball. Through his minor league experience, he was lauded for his fastball and curveball while his slider and changeup were considered incomplete. The Twins, however, have embraced the slider and have outfitted or improved many of those offerings in recent years. 
When describing his slider's profile early in the 2022 season, Ryan told Laurilia that he thinks "more cutter with it [as opposed to] creating a slider" as he throws it.
Cutter movement is beneficial because it is thrown firm and has later movement. MLB's average horizontal cutter movement is 3.0 inches (-3.0 for right-handed pitchers). That's what Ryan's slider was for the majority of the season.
But suddenly, in September, it was not. 
The shape or Ryan's slider change, and one can see that both statistically and on pitching break charts, and he had some other important changes, too. We would love for you to become a Caretaker so you can dive into that detail here. We can't pay writers enough to do that kind of deep dive just using ad revenue, so we reserve it for the Caretakers that support it.  
If you read Twins Daily, well, daily, maybe it's time to become a Caretaker. You'll love it. You'll get more meaty stories like this, plus get perks like Winter Meltdown tickets, and other special recognition. And you can join for as little as $4/moth. You can read all about it and signup here. 
Those benefits are all nice, but the real reason to sign up is this: 100% of all Caretaker money is channeled directly back into the site. By signing up to be a caretaker, you’re supporting writers you value, and enabling deeper dive Twins-specific content like this that isn’t dependent on ad revenue. We hope you’ll consider it. We expect you’ll love the benefits, and we would love to have you take the next step in supporting the Twins Daily community.

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
Since the dawn of baseball, hitters have minced fastballs thrown inside the zone. If you look at all the right-handed pitchers who made ten or more starts last year, Joe Ryan's fastball had a 16.8% swinging strike rate inside the strike zone. Ryan is out on the mound chucking very average velo fastballs and getting professional hitters to miss at a very high clip (10% is league average). He was 8th overall in that category – outpaced by names like Jacob DeGrom, Spencer Strider, and Hunter Greene but ahead of fastball luminaries like Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer.
Unicorn fastball, indeed. 
Ryan's biggest challenge was pairing an equally impressive secondary pitch to keep hitters from solving his fastball. Through his minor league experience, he was lauded for his fastball and curveball while his slider and changeup were considered incomplete. The Twins, however, have embraced the slider and have outfitted or improved many of those offerings in recent years. 
When describing his slider's profile early in the 2022 season, Ryan told Laurilia that he thinks "more cutter with it [as opposed to] creating a slider" as he throws it.
Cutter movement is beneficial because it is thrown firm and has later movement. MLB's average horizontal cutter movement is 3.0 inches (-3.0 for right-handed pitchers). That's what Ryan's slider was for the majority of the season.
But suddenly, in September, it was not. 
The shape or Ryan's slider change, and one can see that both statistically and on pitching break charts, and he had some other important changes, too. We would love for you to become a Caretaker so you can dive into that detail here. We can't pay writers enough to do that kind of deep dive just using ad revenue, so we reserve it for the Caretakers that support it.  
If you read Twins Daily, well, daily, maybe it's time to become a Caretaker. You'll love it. You'll get more meaty stories like this, plus get perks like Winter Meltdown tickets, and other special recognition. And you can join for as little as $4/moth. You can read all about it and signup here. 
Those benefits are all nice, but the real reason to sign up is this: 100% of all Caretaker money is channeled directly back into the site. By signing up to be a caretaker, you’re supporting writers you value, and enabling deeper dive Twins-specific content like this that isn’t dependent on ad revenue. We hope you’ll consider it. We expect you’ll love the benefits, and we would love to have you take the next step in supporting the Twins Daily community.

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
This article continues exclusively for Twins Daily caretakers. To become a caretaker and read the rest of the piece, you can subscribe here.

Joe Ryan seems like a cerebral individual, especially regarding the art and science of pitching. 
"I love talking pitching," Ryan told Fangraphs.com's David Laurilia in April. "I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It's a good time."
"Messing around with the baseball" makes it sound like his pitches happen by a cosmic accident, but as you can glean from his back and forth with Laurilia, Ryan's approach is far from accidental. He cites vertical approach angle and horizontal break, reviewing video of his recent outings and those of his high school days when he pitched from a higher arm slot (he tried to emulate Tim Lincecum). While there is some experimentation in pitching, Ryan's practice is very much deliberate. 
Ryan was a unicorn in that his fastball, while thrown at a very average velocity, piled up swinging strikes at the rate of a much harder thrower. As I detailed after he arrived in 2021, Ryan's low arm slot and riding fastball were thrown at the upper third of the strike zone, turning hitters into pretzels. 
This article continues exclusively for Twins Daily caretakers. To become a caretaker and read the rest of the piece, you can subscribe here.

Last year, the Twins starting pitching ranked 20th in ERA, 18th in FIP, 23rd in K/9, and allowed the 11th most HR/9. If this team was going to improve from a .500ish team to a playoff team, starting pitching needed to be upgraded. Enter Pablo López.
In case you haven’t seen, All-Star 1B/DH Luis Arraez was traded to the Miami Marlins for López, INF Jose Salas, and OF Byron Chourio. Arraez hit .316/.375/.420 last year with a 131 wRC+. López was 10-10 with a 3.75 ERA and a 3.71 FIP. Arraez put up a 3.2 fWAR season compared to López’s 2.8. However, Arraez has an extra year of team control, which is why the Twins had such a high asking price for the 25 year old.
According to Baseball Prospectus, Salas is the 93rd-best prospect, and Chourio had a .838 OPS in the Dominican Summer League as a 17-year-old.
More than ever, pitching is at a premium in Major League Baseball. In the 2022-23 offseason, MLB teams usually receive more bang for their buck when signing position players instead of starting pitchers on the free agent market. As we have seen in the past few years, the current Twins front office prefers to trade for starting pitchers, and this premium on the free agent market could be the main reason.
Using Steamer’s 2023 projection system, we can see how each player projects in the 2023 season. In the age of analytics, the primary statistic that gets players paid is Wins Above Replacement. On average, the top 31 free-agent starting pitchers this offseason signed for $7.21 million per WAR accumulated. On average, the top 31 free-agent position players signed for $6.44 million per win. This shows how much pitching is valued in today’s game and how teams are willing to spend more money to get more pitching.
Like many professional sports executives, Derek Falvey was an economics major and knows that running a successful business or franchise is challenging. To get something, you must give something in return.
The first two economic principles you will learn in an ECON 101 class are scarcity and opportunity cost.
Scarcity means that the demand for a good (or, in our case, player) will always be greater than the availability of that good. In the current game of baseball, above-average pitching is more scarce than a first baseman with an OPS of around .800. Pitching is so valuable, and every team needs it. While Arraez is a great player and probably more valuable by WAR than López, he plays a position full of guys who can produce offensively, reducing his value. As we saw with the Twins last year, good pitching is scarce. López is not an ace by any means, but he would've led the Twins staff in pitching WAR (2.8) and innings pitched (180) in 2022. Above-average pitching isn't something the Twins have had much of in recent years, so López should significantly improve their pitching staff.
Opportunity cost is the second economic principle used in every business decision. Opportunity cost is the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. Every dollar you spend on a player is a dollar you can’t pay another player. Every dollar you give Correa is a dollar you can’t spend on pitching, and vice versa. This Twins front office may see it advantageous to spend big money on position players, given the market premium for pitching.
The opportunity cost of trading Arraez is lower than one may think. You may get a slight decrease in production at first base from Jose Miranda and Alex Kirilloff, but both have shown that they are more than serviceable options. You are downgrading slightly in the infield and effectively upgrading from Bailey Ober to López while adding to the improved rotation depth.
Another reason the Twins could trade Arraez was their surplus of infielders. The Twins now have seven infielders on their 40-man roster. They are Correa, Jorge Polanco, Miranda, Kirilloff, Royce Lewis, Kyle Farmer, and Edouard Julien. Correa, Polanco, and Miranda are all but penciled into the opening-day lineup. Kirilloff has had some of the best batted-ball data in the league when his wrist has been healthy. Lewis looks to be a future difference-maker once he returns mid-season from his second torn ACL. Farmer is a utility infielder who is solid defensively everywhere and hits lefties well. Julien had a .931 OPS in AA last year and a 1.248 OPS in the Arizona Fall League across 96 plate appearances.
The only infielder among these seven who is worse defensively than Arraez is arguably Kirilloff, but he is first base only as a left-handed thrower. Arraez was only seen as a 1B/DH by the Twins' front office, significantly diminishing his value as a player.
Once Lewis is ready to go, and Brooks Lee gets to the majors, Miranda would move to first, creating an odd-man-out situation. Having so many infield options that could be plugged in and perform well is a good problem.
Economics always factor into these decisions that can make or break a franchise. Many decisions come down to opportunity cost and all the different routes front offices can take from offseason to offseason.
Nobody likes it when their favorite player is traded. It sucks. It can make it less enjoyable to watch a team, and Arraez is one of the most fun Twins players in the last ten years. But putting all personal bias aside, from a business standpoint, this move makes sense. You are giving up a player at a position where you have a surplus of options in exchange for a position with less talent.
Thank you for reading, and Go, Twins!

Less than eight months removed from his second career Tommy John surgery, The Twins signed Chris Paddack to a three-year extension. 
The why is simple: Locking Paddack into a three-year deal at a low cost could provide them with rotation depth when he recovers. While there is always a risk, $4 million per year would be a deal for a starter with his upside. 
Beyond the ability to save a few dollars, in his limited time with the Twins, Paddack showed real progress. 
When the Twins acquired him alongside reliever Emilio Pagan in exchange for closer Taylor Rogers, the move bought bewilderment from the Twins faithful. After all, Minnesota’s bullpen had been an epic disaster in 2021, and in one transaction, they traded one of the few effective arms they had.
Not only was Rogers a good pitcher, but he was also a good guy. When the pandemic shuttered spring camps in 2020 and reduced media access to clubhouses, Rogers would meet reporters outside and speak on behalf of the players. Hard to fault people for this reaction. Rogers was a replacement All-Star in 2021 and the team’s union representative. He had performed well and carried himself even better. 
The two new Twins were question marks.
Paddack had long been an exciting prospect. Drafted by the Marlins and traded to the Padres for Fernando Rodney . He had dominating numbers in his age-20 season but required Tommy John for the first time. He recovered, commenced dominating again, and ended up in San Diego in 2019. 
Paddack’s rookie season showed much promise. He finished with 140.2 innings over 26 starts. He struck out 27% of batters faced, held opponents to a .204 average, and posted an excellent 126 ERA+. 
The 2020 season was weird for everybody. Considering the conditions, it’s not a stretch to think it was mentally exhausted by, you know, everything. Expecting players to perform at their best in team isolation is problematic. For Paddack, his fastball moved slightly differently, like a two-seam fastball. On average, he got two more inches of run out of it. 
They would be thrilled if you told most pitchers they had gained two inches of horizontal movement on a pitch. Paddack, however, struggled to command it. He couldn’t elevate it like he had the previous season and missed the zone more often. And he was walloped when left middle-down. He surrendered ten home runs, a .308 average, and got 9.5% swinging strikes versus 12% the year before. 
Maybe it was a sophomore slump or just the effects of a weird, shortened season. Perhaps in the next regular season, Paddack would be ready to continue where his rookie season left off. 
Paddack worked diligently heading into 2021 to command his new moving fastball, locating it more in the zone. While he showed improvement there, hitters also continued to thwack whatever didn’t elevate (.314 batting average against), and the overall season was ugly, punctuated with a 5.07 ERA (77 ERA+). He quickly became a buy-low type of candidate, with the hyper-competitive Padres ready to upgrade their rotation. 
That’s where the Twins come in.
From the Twins’ perspective, there was still a lot to like about Paddack despite his numbers. He had a fastball that regularly touched 97 mph. He had an elite changeup. While he had a 5.07 ERA, he had a solid 3.87 xFIP, suggesting that there was noise, suggesting he pitched a lot better than those results indicated. As I discussed in the recent post on Jorge Lopez, the Twins are tinkerers. 
My initial reaction to Paddack’s acquisition was that the Twins were going to look to do two things:
1. Help him be able to locate his fastball in the upper third of the zone or high and 
2. Reduce his overall usage of his fastball. 
As it turns out, the Twins did just that. Paddack’s numbers look very different from his last season in a Padres uniform through his five starts. 
  % of FBs Upper Third
Fastball Usage
2020
40.9%
58.2%
2021
47.6%
61.5%
2022
60.0%
51.8%
Paddack began to consistently throw the fastball in the upper third.  

One of the reasons behind this consistency is that he had a much more consistent release point with his fastball throughout his five starts. 

And it’s not just the point of release of the ball – it starts with his movements. Paddack and the Twins made strides in tightening his mechanics – from the initial move to his arm path and the release. 
One thing that stands out about his mechanics this past season was how he moved from his center more. (No, it’s not a Bull Durham-type thing where he unjammed his eyelids.) Pitchers who move from their core tend to be more stable throughout their mechanics, and with stability comes repeatability (which is why you see his release point as a tight ball in 2022 versus a scatter chart the past two years). 
Why is the upper third so important? It’s where the swing and misses are. Dating back to 2016, fastballs thrown in the lower third had a swinging strike rate of 4.9% with a 47% in-play rate. However, fastballs at the top area of the strike zone had a swinging strike rate of 12.9% and an in-play rate of 28.1%. 
Paddack’s career with the Padres mirrored this success – he had a 15.1% swinging strike rate at the top of the zone and a 3.7% one at the bottom of the zone. Logically, get him to elevate, and he should succeed with the pitch. 
Paddack’s zone rate with his fastball jumped to 66%, and he had an overall career-high 12.1% swinging strikes rate in 2022.
So while his fastball and changeup remain elite offerings, Paddack has yet to find that elusive and essential third pitch. For most of his career, he has used what has been labeled a “serviceable” curveball. Paddack tried adding velocity to this pitch to help pull it closer to his fastball. The big loop was assisting hitters in eliminating it from his arsenal. 
Again, enter the Twins.
One of the prominent aspects of the Twins’ pitching philosophies is that pitchers should have sliders or cutters – breaking pitches that move late. Unlike curveballs, they don’t deviate from the tunnel as early. The Twins prefer pitchers to throw the sweeper variety slider. 
Chris Paddack began throwing a slider at his third start of the 2022 season. It was something that many people figured would happen.
“He doesn’t give up many hits,” former teammate Craig Stammen said during Paddack’s rookie season. “It’s crazy. And he’s doing it with basically two pitches. I keep thinking he’s going to find a slider — two, three, four years down the road — and he’s going to be really nasty.”
We’re now three years later, and Paddack attempted to fulfill that prophecy.
Paddack had tried to throw a cut fastball but reverted to his fastball-change-curve mix. As Stammen mentioned, the slider would be a decent option to supplant his curveball. In theory, he starts throwing the slider, and he’ll be nasty, right? In practice, however, it was…not great.
In his third and fourth starts of the year, he threw 14 sliders to Tigers and Orioles hitters. They were, well, see for yourself.
Paddack video.mp4  
 
Paddack had five strikes (35% strike rate), two balls in play (both outs!), and one swinging strike. Paddack did not use it during his final outing against the Dodgers. It may have been a lack of confidence in the pitch or simply because of the game plan. 
Nevertheless, the Twins have been very good at maximizing their pitcher’s slider. With much time to recover and then focus on pitching, there should be ample time to polish it up. 
So why did the Twins extend Paddack? The relationship with Scott Boras also played a factor, and the potential to save future money on a rotation piece did too. But don’t overlook that Paddack also had taken substantial strides forward. He locked in on his fastball and has the makings of a third pitch. 
Like his former teammate suggested, we will be four years down the road when Paddack returns. The hope for the Twins is that he is really nasty.

Less than eight months removed from his second career Tommy John surgery, The Twins signed Chris Paddack to a three-year extension. 
The why is simple: Locking Paddack into a three-year deal at a low cost could provide them with rotation depth when he recovers. While there is always a risk, $4 million per year would be a deal for a starter with his upside. 
Beyond the ability to save a few dollars, in his limited time with the Twins, Paddack showed real progress. 
When the Twins acquired him alongside reliever Emilio Pagan in exchange for closer Taylor Rogers, the move bought bewilderment from the Twins faithful. After all, Minnesota’s bullpen had been an epic disaster in 2021, and in one transaction, they traded one of the few effective arms they had.
Not only was Rogers a good pitcher, but he was also a good guy. When the pandemic shuttered spring camps in 2020 and reduced media access to clubhouses, Rogers would meet reporters outside and speak on behalf of the players. Hard to fault people for this reaction. Rogers was a replacement All-Star in 2021 and the team’s union representative. He had performed well and carried himself even better. 
The two new Twins were question marks.
Paddack had long been an exciting prospect. Drafted by the Marlins and traded to the Padres for Fernando Rodney . He had dominating numbers in his age-20 season but required Tommy John for the first time. He recovered, commenced dominating again, and ended up in San Diego in 2019. 
Paddack’s rookie season showed much promise. He finished with 140.2 innings over 26 starts. He struck out 27% of batters faced, held opponents to a .204 average, and posted an excellent 126 ERA+. 
The 2020 season was weird for everybody. Considering the conditions, it’s not a stretch to think it was mentally exhausted by, you know, everything. Expecting players to perform at their best in team isolation is problematic. For Paddack, his fastball moved slightly differently, like a two-seam fastball. On average, he got two more inches of run out of it. 
They would be thrilled if you told most pitchers they had gained two inches of horizontal movement on a pitch. Paddack, however, struggled to command it. He couldn’t elevate it like he had the previous season and missed the zone more often. And he was walloped when left middle-down. He surrendered ten home runs, a .308 average, and got 9.5% swinging strikes versus 12% the year before. 
Maybe it was a sophomore slump or just the effects of a weird, shortened season. Perhaps in the next regular season, Paddack would be ready to continue where his rookie season left off. 
Paddack worked diligently heading into 2021 to command his new moving fastball, locating it more in the zone. While he showed improvement there, hitters also continued to thwack whatever didn’t elevate (.314 batting average against), and the overall season was ugly, punctuated with a 5.07 ERA (77 ERA+). He quickly became a buy-low type of candidate, with the hyper-competitive Padres ready to upgrade their rotation. 
That’s where the Twins come in.
From the Twins’ perspective, there was still a lot to like about Paddack despite his numbers. He had a fastball that regularly touched 97 mph. He had an elite changeup. While he had a 5.07 ERA, he had a solid 3.87 xFIP, suggesting that there was noise, suggesting he pitched a lot better than those results indicated. As I discussed in the recent post on Jorge Lopez, the Twins are tinkerers. 
My initial reaction to Paddack’s acquisition was that the Twins were going to look to do two things:
1. Help him be able to locate his fastball in the upper third of the zone or high and 
2. Reduce his overall usage of his fastball. 
As it turns out, the Twins did just that. Paddack’s numbers look very different from his last season in a Padres uniform through his five starts. 
  % of FBs Upper Third
Fastball Usage
2020
40.9%
58.2%
2021
47.6%
61.5%
2022
60.0%
51.8%
Paddack began to consistently throw the fastball in the upper third.  

One of the reasons behind this consistency is that he had a much more consistent release point with his fastball throughout his five starts. 

And it’s not just the point of release of the ball – it starts with his movements. Paddack and the Twins made strides in tightening his mechanics – from the initial move to his arm path and the release. 
One thing that stands out about his mechanics this past season was how he moved from his center more. (No, it’s not a Bull Durham-type thing where he unjammed his eyelids.) Pitchers who move from their core tend to be more stable throughout their mechanics, and with stability comes repeatability (which is why you see his release point as a tight ball in 2022 versus a scatter chart the past two years). 
Why is the upper third so important? It’s where the swing and misses are. Dating back to 2016, fastballs thrown in the lower third had a swinging strike rate of 4.9% with a 47% in-play rate. However, fastballs at the top area of the strike zone had a swinging strike rate of 12.9% and an in-play rate of 28.1%. 
Paddack’s career with the Padres mirrored this success – he had a 15.1% swinging strike rate at the top of the zone and a 3.7% one at the bottom of the zone. Logically, get him to elevate, and he should succeed with the pitch. 
Paddack’s zone rate with his fastball jumped to 66%, and he had an overall career-high 12.1% swinging strikes rate in 2022.
So while his fastball and changeup remain elite offerings, Paddack has yet to find that elusive and essential third pitch. For most of his career, he has used what has been labeled a “serviceable” curveball. Paddack tried adding velocity to this pitch to help pull it closer to his fastball. The big loop was assisting hitters in eliminating it from his arsenal. 
Again, enter the Twins.
One of the prominent aspects of the Twins’ pitching philosophies is that pitchers should have sliders or cutters – breaking pitches that move late. Unlike curveballs, they don’t deviate from the tunnel as early. The Twins prefer pitchers to throw the sweeper variety slider. 
Chris Paddack began throwing a slider at his third start of the 2022 season. It was something that many people figured would happen.
“He doesn’t give up many hits,” former teammate Craig Stammen said during Paddack’s rookie season. “It’s crazy. And he’s doing it with basically two pitches. I keep thinking he’s going to find a slider — two, three, four years down the road — and he’s going to be really nasty.”
We’re now three years later, and Paddack attempted to fulfill that prophecy.
Paddack had tried to throw a cut fastball but reverted to his fastball-change-curve mix. As Stammen mentioned, the slider would be a decent option to supplant his curveball. In theory, he starts throwing the slider, and he’ll be nasty, right? In practice, however, it was…not great.
In his third and fourth starts of the year, he threw 14 sliders to Tigers and Orioles hitters. They were, well, see for yourself.
Paddack video.mp4  
 
Paddack had five strikes (35% strike rate), two balls in play (both outs!), and one swinging strike. Paddack did not use it during his final outing against the Dodgers. It may have been a lack of confidence in the pitch or simply because of the game plan. 
Nevertheless, the Twins have been very good at maximizing their pitcher’s slider. With much time to recover and then focus on pitching, there should be ample time to polish it up. 
So why did the Twins extend Paddack? The relationship with Scott Boras also played a factor, and the potential to save future money on a rotation piece did too. But don’t overlook that Paddack also had taken substantial strides forward. He locked in on his fastball and has the makings of a third pitch. 
Like his former teammate suggested, we will be four years down the road when Paddack returns. The hope for the Twins is that he is really nasty.

Less than eight months removed from his second career Tommy John surgery, The Twins signed Chris Paddack to a three-year extension. 
The why is simple: Locking Paddack into a three-year deal at a low cost could provide them with rotation depth when he recovers. While there is always a risk, $4 million per year would be a deal for a starter with his upside. 
Beyond the ability to save a few dollars, in his limited time with the Twins, Paddack showed real progress. 
When the Twins acquired him alongside reliever Emilio Pagan in exchange for closer Taylor Rogers, the move bought bewilderment from the Twins faithful. After all, Minnesota’s bullpen had been an epic disaster in 2021, and in one transaction, they traded one of the few effective arms they had.
Not only was Rogers a good pitcher, but he was also a good guy. When the pandemic shuttered spring camps in 2020 and reduced media access to clubhouses, Rogers would meet reporters outside and speak on behalf of the players. Hard to fault people for this reaction. Rogers was a replacement All-Star in 2021 and the team’s union representative. He had performed well and carried himself even better. 
The two new Twins were question marks.
Paddack had long been an exciting prospect. Drafted by the Marlins and traded to the Padres for Fernando Rodney . He had dominating numbers in his age-20 season but required Tommy John for the first time. He recovered, commenced dominating again, and ended up in San Diego in 2019. 
Paddack’s rookie season showed much promise. He finished with 140.2 innings over 26 starts. He struck out 27% of batters faced, held opponents to a .204 average, and posted an excellent 126 ERA+. 
The 2020 season was weird for everybody. Considering the conditions, it’s not a stretch to think it was mentally exhausted by, you know, everything. Expecting players to perform at their best in team isolation is problematic. For Paddack, his fastball moved slightly differently, like a two-seam fastball. On average, he got two more inches of run out of it. 
They would be thrilled if you told most pitchers they had gained two inches of horizontal movement on a pitch. Paddack, however, struggled to command it. He couldn’t elevate it like he had the previous season and missed the zone more often. And he was walloped when left middle-down. He surrendered ten home runs, a .308 average, and got 9.5% swinging strikes versus 12% the year before. 
Maybe it was a sophomore slump or just the effects of a weird, shortened season. Perhaps in the next regular season, Paddack would be ready to continue where his rookie season left off. 
Paddack worked diligently heading into 2021 to command his new moving fastball, locating it more in the zone. While he showed improvement there, hitters also continued to thwack whatever didn’t elevate (.314 batting average against), and the overall season was ugly, punctuated with a 5.07 ERA (77 ERA+). He quickly became a buy-low type of candidate, with the hyper-competitive Padres ready to upgrade their rotation. 
That’s where the Twins come in.
From the Twins’ perspective, there was still a lot to like about Paddack despite his numbers. He had a fastball that regularly touched 97 mph. He had an elite changeup. While he had a 5.07 ERA, he had a solid 3.87 xFIP, suggesting that there was noise, suggesting he pitched a lot better than those results indicated. As I discussed in the recent post on Jorge Lopez, the Twins are tinkerers. 
My initial reaction to Paddack’s acquisition was that the Twins were going to look to do two things:
1. Help him be able to locate his fastball in the upper third of the zone or high and 
2. Reduce his overall usage of his fastball. 
As it turns out, the Twins did just that. Paddack’s numbers look very different from his last season in a Padres uniform through his five starts. 
  % of FBs Upper Third
Fastball Usage
2020
40.9%
58.2%
2021
47.6%
61.5%
2022
60.0%
51.8%
Paddack began to consistently throw the fastball in the upper third.  

One of the reasons behind this consistency is that he had a much more consistent release point with his fastball throughout his five starts. 

And it’s not just the point of release of the ball – it starts with his movements. Paddack and the Twins made strides in tightening his mechanics – from the initial move to his arm path and the release. 
One thing that stands out about his mechanics this past season was how he moved from his center more. (No, it’s not a Bull Durham-type thing where he unjammed his eyelids.) Pitchers who move from their core tend to be more stable throughout their mechanics, and with stability comes repeatability (which is why you see his release point as a tight ball in 2022 versus a scatter chart the past two years). 
Why is the upper third so important? It’s where the swing and misses are. Dating back to 2016, fastballs thrown in the lower third had a swinging strike rate of 4.9% with a 47% in-play rate. However, fastballs at the top area of the strike zone had a swinging strike rate of 12.9% and an in-play rate of 28.1%. 
Paddack’s career with the Padres mirrored this success – he had a 15.1% swinging strike rate at the top of the zone and a 3.7% one at the bottom of the zone. Logically, get him to elevate, and he should succeed with the pitch. 
Paddack’s zone rate with his fastball jumped to 66%, and he had an overall career-high 12.1% swinging strikes rate in 2022.
So while his fastball and changeup remain elite offerings, Paddack has yet to find that elusive and essential third pitch. For most of his career, he has used what has been labeled a “serviceable” curveball. Paddack tried adding velocity to this pitch to help pull it closer to his fastball. The big loop was assisting hitters in eliminating it from his arsenal. 
Again, enter the Twins.
One of the prominent aspects of the Twins’ pitching philosophies is that pitchers should have sliders or cutters – breaking pitches that move late. Unlike curveballs, they don’t deviate from the tunnel as early. The Twins prefer pitchers to throw the sweeper variety slider. 
Chris Paddack began throwing a slider at his third start of the 2022 season. It was something that many people figured would happen.
“He doesn’t give up many hits,” former teammate Craig Stammen said during Paddack’s rookie season. “It’s crazy. And he’s doing it with basically two pitches. I keep thinking he’s going to find a slider — two, three, four years down the road — and he’s going to be really nasty.”
We’re now three years later, and Paddack attempted to fulfill that prophecy.
Paddack had tried to throw a cut fastball but reverted to his fastball-change-curve mix. As Stammen mentioned, the slider would be a decent option to supplant his curveball. In theory, he starts throwing the slider, and he’ll be nasty, right? In practice, however, it was…not great.
In his third and fourth starts of the year, he threw 14 sliders to Tigers and Orioles hitters. They were, well, see for yourself.
Paddack video.mp4  
 
Paddack had five strikes (35% strike rate), two balls in play (both outs!), and one swinging strike. Paddack did not use it during his final outing against the Dodgers. It may have been a lack of confidence in the pitch or simply because of the game plan. 
Nevertheless, the Twins have been very good at maximizing their pitcher’s slider. With much time to recover and then focus on pitching, there should be ample time to polish it up. 
So why did the Twins extend Paddack? The relationship with Scott Boras also played a factor, and the potential to save future money on a rotation piece did too. But don’t overlook that Paddack also had taken substantial strides forward. He locked in on his fastball and has the makings of a third pitch. 
Like his former teammate suggested, we will be four years down the road when Paddack returns. The hope for the Twins is that he is really nasty.

Less than eight months removed from his second career Tommy John surgery, The Twins signed Chris Paddack to a three-year extension. 
The why is simple: Locking Paddack into a three-year deal at a low cost could provide them with rotation depth when he recovers. While there is always a risk, $4 million per year would be a deal for a starter with his upside. 
Beyond the ability to save a few dollars, in his limited time with the Twins, Paddack showed real progress. 
When the Twins acquired him alongside reliever Emilio Pagan in exchange for closer Taylor Rogers, the move bought bewilderment from the Twins faithful. After all, Minnesota’s bullpen had been an epic disaster in 2021, and in one transaction, they traded one of the few effective arms they had.
Not only was Rogers a good pitcher, but he was also a good guy. When the pandemic shuttered spring camps in 2020 and reduced media access to clubhouses, Rogers would meet reporters outside and speak on behalf of the players. Hard to fault people for this reaction. Rogers was a replacement All-Star in 2021 and the team’s union representative. He had performed well and carried himself even better. 
The two new Twins were question marks.
Paddack had long been an exciting prospect. Drafted by the Marlins and traded to the Padres for Fernando Rodney . He had dominating numbers in his age-20 season but required Tommy John for the first time. He recovered, commenced dominating again, and ended up in San Diego in 2019. 
Paddack’s rookie season showed much promise. He finished with 140.2 innings over 26 starts. He struck out 27% of batters faced, held opponents to a .204 average, and posted an excellent 126 ERA+. 
The 2020 season was weird for everybody. Considering the conditions, it’s not a stretch to think it was mentally exhausted by, you know, everything. Expecting players to perform at their best in team isolation is problematic. For Paddack, his fastball moved slightly differently, like a two-seam fastball. On average, he got two more inches of run out of it. 
They would be thrilled if you told most pitchers they had gained two inches of horizontal movement on a pitch. Paddack, however, struggled to command it. He couldn’t elevate it like he had the previous season and missed the zone more often. And he was walloped when left middle-down. He surrendered ten home runs, a .308 average, and got 9.5% swinging strikes versus 12% the year before. 
Maybe it was a sophomore slump or just the effects of a weird, shortened season. Perhaps in the next regular season, Paddack would be ready to continue where his rookie season left off. 
Paddack worked diligently heading into 2021 to command his new moving fastball, locating it more in the zone. While he showed improvement there, hitters also continued to thwack whatever didn’t elevate (.314 batting average against), and the overall season was ugly, punctuated with a 5.07 ERA (77 ERA+). He quickly became a buy-low type of candidate, with the hyper-competitive Padres ready to upgrade their rotation. 
That’s where the Twins come in.
From the Twins’ perspective, there was still a lot to like about Paddack despite his numbers. He had a fastball that regularly touched 97 mph. He had an elite changeup. While he had a 5.07 ERA, he had a solid 3.87 xFIP, suggesting that there was noise, suggesting he pitched a lot better than those results indicated. As I discussed in the recent post on Jorge Lopez, the Twins are tinkerers. 
My initial reaction to Paddack’s acquisition was that the Twins were going to look to do two things:
1. Help him be able to locate his fastball in the upper third of the zone or high and 
2. Reduce his overall usage of his fastball. 
As it turns out, the Twins did just that. Paddack’s numbers look very different from his last season in a Padres uniform through his five starts. 
  % of FBs Upper Third
Fastball Usage
2020
40.9%
58.2%
2021
47.6%
61.5%
2022
60.0%
51.8%
Paddack began to consistently throw the fastball in the upper third.  

One of the reasons behind this consistency is that he had a much more consistent release point with his fastball throughout his five starts. 

And it’s not just the point of release of the ball – it starts with his movements. Paddack and the Twins made strides in tightening his mechanics – from the initial move to his arm path and the release. 
One thing that stands out about his mechanics this past season was how he moved from his center more. (No, it’s not a Bull Durham-type thing where he unjammed his eyelids.) Pitchers who move from their core tend to be more stable throughout their mechanics, and with stability comes repeatability (which is why you see his release point as a tight ball in 2022 versus a scatter chart the past two years). 
Why is the upper third so important? It’s where the swing and misses are. Dating back to 2016, fastballs thrown in the lower third had a swinging strike rate of 4.9% with a 47% in-play rate. However, fastballs at the top area of the strike zone had a swinging strike rate of 12.9% and an in-play rate of 28.1%. 
Paddack’s career with the Padres mirrored this success – he had a 15.1% swinging strike rate at the top of the zone and a 3.7% one at the bottom of the zone. Logically, get him to elevate, and he should succeed with the pitch. 
Paddack’s zone rate with his fastball jumped to 66%, and he had an overall career-high 12.1% swinging strikes rate in 2022.
So while his fastball and changeup remain elite offerings, Paddack has yet to find that elusive and essential third pitch. For most of his career, he has used what has been labeled a “serviceable” curveball. Paddack tried adding velocity to this pitch to help pull it closer to his fastball. The big loop was assisting hitters in eliminating it from his arsenal. 
Again, enter the Twins.
One of the prominent aspects of the Twins’ pitching philosophies is that pitchers should have sliders or cutters – breaking pitches that move late. Unlike curveballs, they don’t deviate from the tunnel as early. The Twins prefer pitchers to throw the sweeper variety slider. 
Chris Paddack began throwing a slider at his third start of the 2022 season. It was something that many people figured would happen.
“He doesn’t give up many hits,” former teammate Craig Stammen said during Paddack’s rookie season. “It’s crazy. And he’s doing it with basically two pitches. I keep thinking he’s going to find a slider — two, three, four years down the road — and he’s going to be really nasty.”
We’re now three years later, and Paddack attempted to fulfill that prophecy.
Paddack had tried to throw a cut fastball but reverted to his fastball-change-curve mix. As Stammen mentioned, the slider would be a decent option to supplant his curveball. In theory, he starts throwing the slider, and he’ll be nasty, right? In practice, however, it was…not great.
In his third and fourth starts of the year, he threw 14 sliders to Tigers and Orioles hitters. They were, well, see for yourself.
Paddack video.mp4  
 
Paddack had five strikes (35% strike rate), two balls in play (both outs!), and one swinging strike. Paddack did not use it during his final outing against the Dodgers. It may have been a lack of confidence in the pitch or simply because of the game plan. 
Nevertheless, the Twins have been very good at maximizing their pitcher’s slider. With much time to recover and then focus on pitching, there should be ample time to polish it up. 
So why did the Twins extend Paddack? The relationship with Scott Boras also played a factor, and the potential to save future money on a rotation piece did too. But don’t overlook that Paddack also had taken substantial strides forward. He locked in on his fastball and has the makings of a third pitch. 
Like his former teammate suggested, we will be four years down the road when Paddack returns. The hope for the Twins is that he is really nasty.

If things had gone differently, Caleb Thielbar might have been in South Dakota, conducting recruiting visits and game-planning for a Division II baseball program as Augustana’s pitching coach. 
If he didn’t seek help from Driveline Baseball, he might not have added the necessary velocity or maximized each pitch’s effectiveness. If he did not get invited onto USA Baseball’s Premier 12 roster in 2019 – one composed of mostly young prospects – he might not have caught the attention of scouts with his high spin curveball and his now low 90s fastball. 
Instead, he’s reporting alongside the other pitchers and catchers in Fort Myers next month, returning to the Minnesota Twins as one of the most valuable weapons in the bullpen. 
Thielbar’s age-35 season was pretty impressive. He struck out 32.7% of hitters faced (20th best among pitchers who faced 200 or more batters). He allowed the lowest hard-hit ball percentages (25.9%) than anyone not named Lucas Luetge. 
What is unique about Thielbar is that as he ages, his velocity increases – the rare Benjamin Button effect for pitchers. 
When pitchers increase velocity, they discuss expanding the ceiling and the floor. Thielbar was capable of reaching 92.8 in 2020 but sat at 89.8. The following season, he was topping at 95.3 while sitting at 91.3. This past season, while the ceiling didn’t move much (he maxed at 95.5), his average fastball velocity was now at 92.8. 
Moreover, Thielbar’s secondary pitches also saw a good amount of velocity spike. In 2020, his curve averaged 68.7 but was up to 73.0 mph in 2022. The slider averaged 77.5 in 2020 and was now up to 81.3. 
Thielbar had a well-documented transformation at Driveline. Their pitching experts found minor issues with his mechanics overall. But they did find one area for him to attack in his remote training. Plyo drills, prescribed thanks to Driveline’s biomechanics analysis that revealed he had lower than usual hip-shoulder separation at foot plant, helped him improve this area of his mechanics and aided some of his velocity gains. 
He also acknowledged that he was trying to throw harder, as crazy as that sounds. When you compare the 2020 mechanics to this past year’s, you can visually see someone who indeed appears to be trying to throw harder. 
Still, Thielbar’s velocity improvement remained below average for major league left-handed relievers. Despite the gains, Thielbar’s fastball was at the 39th percentile for velocity in 2022. Nevertheless, at a 17.9% swinging strike rate, his fastball missed more bats than every reliever besides Pittsburgh’s David Bednar (who threw his at a slightly crisper 96.5 mph on average)*. 
So how was it so effective? 
Thielbar began to throw the fastball almost exclusively up in the strike zone. In 2021, when he threw fastballs in the upper half of the zone at a 57.6% rate, he had an 18.6% swinging strike rate (compared to a 5.2% one in the lower half of the zone). He went all in on upstairs in 2022 — 72.6% of fastballs thrown were in the upper half of the zone. 

Thielbar also said in July 2020 that he was trying to make his fastball spin as efficiently as possible. What Thielbar was trying to do was backspin the ball as close to north and south as possible. 
Thielbar achieved this by slightly altering his release to stay behind the ball more. According to Baseball Savant, in 2020, he owned an active spin rate percentage of 89% (100% being a perfect backspinning fastball). In 2021 that rate jumped to 91% and then 92% last season. Consider these pitch release charts below.

You need to know that the 0 line is north and south over the pitcher’s rubber. In 2020, his release was slightly over toward the first base side of the mound (13.9 inches), but he started to get that tighter back toward the center (6.4 inches in 2021). This past year that release point was nearly in line at 0 (4.1 inches). 
The average horizontal release point for left-handed pitchers is 25.0 inches. At 4.1 inches, Thielbar is a significant outlier. The only left-handed pitcher with a release point further to the right than Thielbar is his potential teammate, Danny Coulombe (who is at -4.3 inches and an extreme example in this category). The key is to give hitters different looks.
Why does this matter for Thielbar? Typically, the more a pitcher’s release goes away from the center, the higher probability that it will have a different axis that will impart side spin and detract from the optimal backspin he is seeking. By being behind the ball more, he reduces the amount of cut or run on a pitch and optimizes the carry. The fastball fell less this year than in his previous seasons—hence the ability to be so effective up in the zone. 
Essentially, Thielbar became more consistent and efficient in throwing his fastball. He could effectively locate the pitch in the upper third of the zone. The elevated fastball improves the quality of the secondary pitches that can tunnel out of that. 
Look at the performance of his breaking balls (slider and curveball) playing off an elevated fastball:
Caleb Thielbar | Breaking Balls Following Elevated Fastballs
  Batters Faced
Swing%
Chase%
Swinging Strike%
2022
47
57.5
40.0
18.1
2021
32
43.2
25.4
8.8
By staying consistent with his fastball up in the zone, Thielbar would coax hitters to chase after his breaking stuff and, often, miss or make weak contact. 
Crafty is a word thrown around to describe what is often an aging left-handed pitcher who relies more on contorting the ball rather than blowing it past hitters. Thanks to technology and an advanced understanding of biomechanics, the lefty has not just prolonged his career but also thrived and dominated. In a different era, that might have been Thielbar’s destiny.
That said, it’s hard to say when the ride will end. Thielbar has pushed his velocity north each year, and it’s rare to see a pitcher continue to do so well into their thirties (after all, time is undefeated in reducing a pitcher’s radar readings).
In many ways, Thielbar is a crafty lefty. The word means being clever at achieving one’s aims. Through his acquisition of knowledge from Driveline and the Twins’ player development system, he has turned himself into a high-caliber relief arm.
Caleb Thielbar is one crafty mother. 
*Among relievers who threw 400 or more fastballs in 2022.

Last year, the Twins were 20.7 runs worse than an average team on the bases, according to FanGraphs. That was the second-worst mark in MLB. They stole (or even attempted to steal) fewer bases than any other team. They took the extra base on hits at a below-average rate, and they made outs on the bases at an above-average rate. 
That has been a pattern throughout the Rocco Baldelli era, too. The team will point out that the whole league is moving away from steals and aggressive baserunning, and that may be true, but the Twins still stand out like a sore hamstring. Since 2019, the Twins have stolen just 134 bases. The Red Sox have stolen the second-fewest in MLB, at 191. The gap between Minnesota and Boston is larger than the gap between Boston and the Yankees, who have stolen the 14th-fewest over that span. 
Baserunning is a nuanced art, and when a team does it poorly, the field staff always gets the heat. In this case, though, it’s pretty clear that the front office is driving the systemic failure. It’s a part of their broader strategy. There are good reasons underpinning that strategy, too. That said, the strategy sucks.
The two free agent signees most on the mind of Twins fans at the moment provide a perfect way to understand what the team is doing. Last winter, they surprised everyone by signing Carlos Correa, albeit on a short-term deal. Correa was and is a premium talent, with a long track record of brilliant play. There’s almost no weakness in his game–almost. 
Correa is a terrible baserunner. He’s actually quite fast, once he gets underway, but he’s so conservative on the bases (and so hesitant, after years of such overcautiousness) that he can’t avail himself of his speed most of the time. While an excellent player overall, he has hurt his teams by hitting into too many double plays and doing too little on the bases in each of the last two seasons.
Why is Correa so careful? The hiccup that triggered the final twist in his second tour of free agency illustrates it. He suffered a significant lower-leg injury running the bases in the minor leagues in 2014, and some reports suggest that the San Francisco Giants’ hangup in reading his physical exam traced all the way back to that injury. 
This is one huge reason for the broader trend away from emphasizing baserunning, and for the Twins’ philosophy of treading lightly. Everyone, and especially the Twins, now views the risk of injury as part of the break-even calculations required when deciding whether to attempt a steal, whether to try to score from first on a double, and even how to instruct players about their mentality on the bases. 
Just as importantly, though, the Twins have arrived at a conclusion similar to the one articulated at the beginning of Moneyball. They think speed is overpriced, and they view it as a secondary skill set. They would rather select players for their ability to authoritatively pull the ball in the air, for instance, than select them for speed or baserunning savvy, because most games are impacted more by what one does in the batter’s box than by what one does on the basepaths. 
That’s why the Twins, even if only fractionally, were more willing than other teams to overlook Joey Gallo’s falling Sprint Speed. Once a comfortably above-average runner, Gallo (whose pull power- and patience-centered approach at the plate fit the Twins’ philosophy like a batting glove) has lost a step over the last few years, and is now about as slow as his huge frame would suggest. He’s still a fine defender, thanks to good reads off the bat and a strong arm, but he’s a below-average runner in either corner outfield spot, and might not be viable in center field any longer. He’s tangibly slower than Max Kepler, whose role on the club he figures to take in 2023.
These things matter, because the Twins’ proclivity for accepting less speed is also why they’re perennially saddled with so many injuries, and why they often feel like a sclerotic, one-dimensional team. While it’s secondary in the degree to which it directly affects most games, speed is a primary indicator of a certain kind of athleticism. 
In baseball, there are two main categories of athleticism, and many players excel in one or the other, rather than both. One type is the explosive, rotational athlete. These are the guys who can throw 103 miles per hour, have excellent Bomba Rates, and generally have a knack for transferring massive energy from the ground, through themselves, and into the baseball. 
The Twins collect these guys. In their farm system, they train guys to be great in this sector of athleticism. They consider the batter-pitcher matchup, with its intensity and its potential for premeditation and tactical aggression, the center of the game, and they put their resources into being ready to win it as often as possible.
The other main type of baseball athleticism is the one people more often mean when they use the word. It’s not about unidirectional energy flow, but about proprioception and hand-eye coordination. It encompasses balance, looseness in the hips, the ability to make last-second adjustments, and comfort doing usual things at unusual angles. 
This is what allows a great hitter, when fooled, to flick the ball the other way for a double. It’s the extra dimension of movement that always seems to let Javier Baez creatively slide around a tag–and the anticipatory quickness that allows Baez to thwart would-be tag evaders when he’s in the field.
Straight-line speed actually belongs to the first category of athleticism, as much as the second. It’s not a coincidence that, as he’s worked out who he is as a player, Byron Buxton has become a lethal power hitter, adept at turning on the ball and driving it in the air. He uses much of the same extraordinary musculature and intuitive sense of leverage to generate both that power and his awesome speed, at full gait. 
Buxton, however, has become a mostly stagnant and ineffectual baserunner, because he hasn’t cultivated the other dimension of athleticism. He gets into trouble when trying to change speeds or direction suddenly. He gets hurt. While pure speed itself comes from the same place as power, speed utility—and the health benefits of being lithe and fast—comes from that second type of athleticism. Buxton, like virtually all of his teammates, is missing that.
The Twins are selecting baseball-specialized athletes too often, and training the guys already in their organization to focus too much on that area. They don’t want to pay for a skill that seems to make up so little of the game, and that helps them keep up with other clubs in the power department. 
The tradeoff leads to all kinds of problems, though, like having two guys with below-average range and quickness on the left side of their infield in the first year without defensive shifts. (Kyle Farmer and Jose Miranda each do what the Twins want hitters to do, but both are insufficient multidirectional athletes if they’re to be paired at their current positions.) 
It also leads to more injuries, because the players they’re acquiring and developing are stretching their bodies to their limits in short, violent bursts, and lack the capacity for the tiny adjustments that can avert disaster. That’s all on top of the most obvious problem, which is this: The Twins let runs go unscored because they simply don’t have guys who can put pressure on defenses and fully exploit opportunities.
 

With the Orioles, López was a dominant backend of the bullpen arm, outfitted with an upper 90s sinker and wiffleball movement at the top of the zone. He had some intriguing offspeed stuff, was missing bats, and locking down games. 
The Twins may have thought they could take a pitcher right near the cusp of being elite and make him that much better. However, that initial experiment has backfired. 
What happened?
Pick any stat you want from Jorge López and it was likely substantially worse with the Twins. 
Strikeouts? Down — from 28% with Baltimore to 16% with the Twins. Walk rate? Up — from 9% to 15%. Batting average allowed? Up — it was a clean 174 with Baltimore and grew to a grotesque 314 with the Twins. Hard hit balls? Up — exit velocity of balls over 95 mph went from 30% to 44%.
Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse tweeted on September 20 that López "was tremendous and always had excellent stuff… Finally harvested in the bullpen. Twins were dazzled by his 97 mph sinker and proceeded to turn him into a guy constantly behind in the count throwing breaking balls." 
The reality is the Twins kept him consistent in his sinker usage.
"There's been suggestions that we have him throwing more offspeed pitches than in Baltimore," Falvey later refuted to Reusse. "That's not true. He's still throwing a lot of fastballs and with the same velocity."
Which was an accurate statement but also… misleading. 
True, if you look at the overall pitch data of his sinker/two-seam fastball usage (50.3% in Baltimore and 50.9% with the Twins), they are basically the same. It is also true that López maintained that same crisp velocity in both uniforms (97.8 in Baltimore, 97.4 with the Twins). And finally, López threw more pitches while ahead in the count with the Twins than he did with the Orioles (so, no, he wasn’t “constantly behind in the count”). 
Falvey's narrative holds up as long as you only look as far as the total pitch type percentage and velocity. Consider two-strike counts. López used his sinker less frequently with the Twins — it went down from 47% to 40%. Equally as important was how he was using it. Watch this video.
Jorge Lopez Video.mp4  
If you watched those clips and thought I was trying to hypnotize you by staring at the blobbies, here's what's up: With Baltimore, López threw his sinker at the top of the zone with 2-strikes. With the Twins, it was middle and down. With the Orioles, it was thrown with conviction and intent. In Minnesota, instead of ripping it, it feels like he was guiding it, trying to get the right amount of run and sink. He was trying to blow their doors off. 
Look at how much the performance suffered.
Jorge López Sinker In 2-Strike Counts
  Thrown%
K
Upper 3rd%
Swinging Strike%
BAA
BALT
46.5
26
69.3
16.7
.122
MINN
39.5
3
46.7
2.2
.227
It was not just that the sinker's use was limited with the Twins — he also was throwing more changeups in 2-strike counts. 
With the Orioles, López got a bulk of his strikeouts with his sinker and used his other pitches fairly evenly (sliders 18%, curveballs 14%, and change up 18%). Hitters held a .044 batting average against his non-fastballs with 2-strikes. The Twins had him use the sinker less and all but eliminated the slider from his arsenal in the 2-strike scenarios, throwing more changeups (35%) compared to sliders (4%) and curveballs (15%). Hitters posted a .286 batting average against those pitches.
This is the element that Reusse was referring to, that López was not using his sinker as much and opting for other stuff (“throwing breaking balls”). 
When you look at his sinker's greasy metrics — such as tilt, release point, and movement — you'll find that it was a slightly different shape with the Orioles than it was with the Twins. The axis in which the ball spins out of his hand changed a bit (from 1:32 to 1:48), and his release point was about 2 inches lower (from 70.2 inches to 68.7 inches), and the vertical movement had two more inches of drop (from 8.9 induced vert to 6.7 induced vert). This was a concerted attempt at getting the ball to stay down in the zone. 
 
SINKER LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS)

It cannot be said with absolute certainty because no one has publicly acknowledged this, but the Twins have encouraged Jorge to adjust his sinker. The working theory is that by throwing it down in the zone, he can pair it better with his changeup (a solid pitch in its own right). Like the sinker, López slightly altered his changeup at release (different spin axis, lower release, etc.) and induced more horizontal run and drop. Those results were positive.
CHANGEUP LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS) 
 

Jorge López Changeup
  Thrown%
Swing%
K
Zone%
Swinging Strike %
BALT
15
43.5
6
31
14
MINN
17
42.1
9
24
24
In short, López’s changeup benefitted from the modification of his sinker whereas his sinker’s performance -- his prime pitch with the O’s – suffered. 
Plenty of what López is going through stems from the tough lessons the Twins learned in the Ryan Pressly trade. Notoriously Presley was traded to the Astros and was told to spin it. Spin it good. He did and went from a pitcher with excellent stuff to a lights-out All-Star closer. 
"It was a very hard lesson and very discouraging for us," Assistant General Manager Daniel Adler said in October 2018. "On the other hand, in some ways, it was a really strong teachable moment for us. … In some ways, I think it makes it easier to go to the next player."
To ensure they never fail to communicate information like that again, the Twins built a strong bridge that extends from the player development system into the clubhouse. Knowledge discovered in the front office is integrated into the day-to-day. Pitchers acquired – no matter how much success they are having at their previous stop – will receive information to optimize them, be it through an arsenal change, mechanical tweak, or something else. 
Kenta Maeda. Chris Paddack. Matt Shoemaker. Sonny Gray. Jharel Cotton. Nobody is a finished product. 
With the Twins, Jorge López has gone down the same path to middling results. The changeup seems much improved and could be an excellent weapon. On the other hand, they may have come at the expense of his sinker's performance – especially in those 2-strike situations. 
There appear to be crossroads ahead. López will be part of the 2023 bullpen, but what will his approach be? Will he continue to lean into the sinker/changeup mix, hoping to perfect that combination by next season? Or will he return to throwing moving heat at the top of the zone?

With the Orioles, López was a dominant backend of the bullpen arm, outfitted with an upper 90s sinker and wiffleball movement at the top of the zone. He had some intriguing offspeed stuff, was missing bats, and locking down games. 
The Twins may have thought they could take a pitcher right near the cusp of being elite and make him that much better. However, that initial experiment has backfired. 
What happened?
Pick any stat you want from Jorge López and it was likely substantially worse with the Twins. 
Strikeouts? Down — from 28% with Baltimore to 16% with the Twins. Walk rate? Up — from 9% to 15%. Batting average allowed? Up — it was a clean 174 with Baltimore and grew to a grotesque 314 with the Twins. Hard hit balls? Up — exit velocity of balls over 95 mph went from 30% to 44%.
Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse tweeted on September 20 that López "was tremendous and always had excellent stuff… Finally harvested in the bullpen. Twins were dazzled by his 97 mph sinker and proceeded to turn him into a guy constantly behind in the count throwing breaking balls." 
The reality is the Twins kept him consistent in his sinker usage.
"There's been suggestions that we have him throwing more offspeed pitches than in Baltimore," Falvey later refuted to Reusse. "That's not true. He's still throwing a lot of fastballs and with the same velocity."
Which was an accurate statement but also… misleading. 
True, if you look at the overall pitch data of his sinker/two-seam fastball usage (50.3% in Baltimore and 50.9% with the Twins), they are basically the same. It is also true that López maintained that same crisp velocity in both uniforms (97.8 in Baltimore, 97.4 with the Twins). And finally, López threw more pitches while ahead in the count with the Twins than he did with the Orioles (so, no, he wasn’t “constantly behind in the count”). 
Falvey's narrative holds up as long as you only look as far as the total pitch type percentage and velocity. Consider two-strike counts. López used his sinker less frequently with the Twins — it went down from 47% to 40%. Equally as important was how he was using it. Watch this video.
Jorge Lopez Video.mp4  
If you watched those clips and thought I was trying to hypnotize you by staring at the blobbies, here's what's up: With Baltimore, López threw his sinker at the top of the zone with 2-strikes. With the Twins, it was middle and down. With the Orioles, it was thrown with conviction and intent. In Minnesota, instead of ripping it, it feels like he was guiding it, trying to get the right amount of run and sink. He was trying to blow their doors off. 
Look at how much the performance suffered.
Jorge López Sinker In 2-Strike Counts
  Thrown%
K
Upper 3rd%
Swinging Strike%
BAA
BALT
46.5
26
69.3
16.7
.122
MINN
39.5
3
46.7
2.2
.227
It was not just that the sinker's use was limited with the Twins — he also was throwing more changeups in 2-strike counts. 
With the Orioles, López got a bulk of his strikeouts with his sinker and used his other pitches fairly evenly (sliders 18%, curveballs 14%, and change up 18%). Hitters held a .044 batting average against his non-fastballs with 2-strikes. The Twins had him use the sinker less and all but eliminated the slider from his arsenal in the 2-strike scenarios, throwing more changeups (35%) compared to sliders (4%) and curveballs (15%). Hitters posted a .286 batting average against those pitches.
This is the element that Reusse was referring to, that López was not using his sinker as much and opting for other stuff (“throwing breaking balls”). 
When you look at his sinker's greasy metrics — such as tilt, release point, and movement — you'll find that it was a slightly different shape with the Orioles than it was with the Twins. The axis in which the ball spins out of his hand changed a bit (from 1:32 to 1:48), and his release point was about 2 inches lower (from 70.2 inches to 68.7 inches), and the vertical movement had two more inches of drop (from 8.9 induced vert to 6.7 induced vert). This was a concerted attempt at getting the ball to stay down in the zone. 
 
SINKER LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS)

It cannot be said with absolute certainty because no one has publicly acknowledged this, but the Twins have encouraged Jorge to adjust his sinker. The working theory is that by throwing it down in the zone, he can pair it better with his changeup (a solid pitch in its own right). Like the sinker, López slightly altered his changeup at release (different spin axis, lower release, etc.) and induced more horizontal run and drop. Those results were positive.
CHANGEUP LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS) 
 

Jorge López Changeup
  Thrown%
Swing%
K
Zone%
Swinging Strike %
BALT
15
43.5
6
31
14
MINN
17
42.1
9
24
24
In short, López’s changeup benefitted from the modification of his sinker whereas his sinker’s performance -- his prime pitch with the O’s – suffered. 
Plenty of what López is going through stems from the tough lessons the Twins learned in the Ryan Pressly trade. Notoriously Presley was traded to the Astros and was told to spin it. Spin it good. He did and went from a pitcher with excellent stuff to a lights-out All-Star closer. 
"It was a very hard lesson and very discouraging for us," Assistant General Manager Daniel Adler said in October 2018. "On the other hand, in some ways, it was a really strong teachable moment for us. … In some ways, I think it makes it easier to go to the next player."
To ensure they never fail to communicate information like that again, the Twins built a strong bridge that extends from the player development system into the clubhouse. Knowledge discovered in the front office is integrated into the day-to-day. Pitchers acquired – no matter how much success they are having at their previous stop – will receive information to optimize them, be it through an arsenal change, mechanical tweak, or something else. 
Kenta Maeda. Chris Paddack. Matt Shoemaker. Sonny Gray. Jharel Cotton. Nobody is a finished product. 
With the Twins, Jorge López has gone down the same path to middling results. The changeup seems much improved and could be an excellent weapon. On the other hand, they may have come at the expense of his sinker's performance – especially in those 2-strike situations. 
There appear to be crossroads ahead. López will be part of the 2023 bullpen, but what will his approach be? Will he continue to lean into the sinker/changeup mix, hoping to perfect that combination by next season? Or will he return to throwing moving heat at the top of the zone?

With the Orioles, López was a dominant backend of the bullpen arm, outfitted with an upper 90s sinker and wiffleball movement at the top of the zone. He had some intriguing offspeed stuff, was missing bats, and locking down games. 
The Twins may have thought they could take a pitcher right near the cusp of being elite and make him that much better. However, that initial experiment has backfired. 
What happened?
Pick any stat you want from Jorge López and it was likely substantially worse with the Twins. 
Strikeouts? Down — from 28% with Baltimore to 16% with the Twins. Walk rate? Up — from 9% to 15%. Batting average allowed? Up — it was a clean 174 with Baltimore and grew to a grotesque 314 with the Twins. Hard hit balls? Up — exit velocity of balls over 95 mph went from 30% to 44%.
Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse tweeted on September 20 that López "was tremendous and always had excellent stuff… Finally harvested in the bullpen. Twins were dazzled by his 97 mph sinker and proceeded to turn him into a guy constantly behind in the count throwing breaking balls." 
The reality is the Twins kept him consistent in his sinker usage.
"There's been suggestions that we have him throwing more offspeed pitches than in Baltimore," Falvey later refuted to Reusse. "That's not true. He's still throwing a lot of fastballs and with the same velocity."
Which was an accurate statement but also… misleading. 
True, if you look at the overall pitch data of his sinker/two-seam fastball usage (50.3% in Baltimore and 50.9% with the Twins), they are basically the same. It is also true that López maintained that same crisp velocity in both uniforms (97.8 in Baltimore, 97.4 with the Twins). And finally, López threw more pitches while ahead in the count with the Twins than he did with the Orioles (so, no, he wasn’t “constantly behind in the count”). 
Falvey's narrative holds up as long as you only look as far as the total pitch type percentage and velocity. Consider two-strike counts. López used his sinker less frequently with the Twins — it went down from 47% to 40%. Equally as important was how he was using it. Watch this video.
Jorge Lopez Video.mp4  
If you watched those clips and thought I was trying to hypnotize you by staring at the blobbies, here's what's up: With Baltimore, López threw his sinker at the top of the zone with 2-strikes. With the Twins, it was middle and down. With the Orioles, it was thrown with conviction and intent. In Minnesota, instead of ripping it, it feels like he was guiding it, trying to get the right amount of run and sink. He was trying to blow their doors off. 
Look at how much the performance suffered.
Jorge López Sinker In 2-Strike Counts
  Thrown%
K
Upper 3rd%
Swinging Strike%
BAA
BALT
46.5
26
69.3
16.7
.122
MINN
39.5
3
46.7
2.2
.227
It was not just that the sinker's use was limited with the Twins — he also was throwing more changeups in 2-strike counts. 
With the Orioles, López got a bulk of his strikeouts with his sinker and used his other pitches fairly evenly (sliders 18%, curveballs 14%, and change up 18%). Hitters held a .044 batting average against his non-fastballs with 2-strikes. The Twins had him use the sinker less and all but eliminated the slider from his arsenal in the 2-strike scenarios, throwing more changeups (35%) compared to sliders (4%) and curveballs (15%). Hitters posted a .286 batting average against those pitches.
This is the element that Reusse was referring to, that López was not using his sinker as much and opting for other stuff (“throwing breaking balls”). 
When you look at his sinker's greasy metrics — such as tilt, release point, and movement — you'll find that it was a slightly different shape with the Orioles than it was with the Twins. The axis in which the ball spins out of his hand changed a bit (from 1:32 to 1:48), and his release point was about 2 inches lower (from 70.2 inches to 68.7 inches), and the vertical movement had two more inches of drop (from 8.9 induced vert to 6.7 induced vert). This was a concerted attempt at getting the ball to stay down in the zone. 
 
SINKER LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS)

It cannot be said with absolute certainty because no one has publicly acknowledged this, but the Twins have encouraged Jorge to adjust his sinker. The working theory is that by throwing it down in the zone, he can pair it better with his changeup (a solid pitch in its own right). Like the sinker, López slightly altered his changeup at release (different spin axis, lower release, etc.) and induced more horizontal run and drop. Those results were positive.
CHANGEUP LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS) 
 

Jorge López Changeup
  Thrown%
Swing%
K
Zone%
Swinging Strike %
BALT
15
43.5
6
31
14
MINN
17
42.1
9
24
24
In short, López’s changeup benefitted from the modification of his sinker whereas his sinker’s performance -- his prime pitch with the O’s – suffered. 
Plenty of what López is going through stems from the tough lessons the Twins learned in the Ryan Pressly trade. Notoriously Presley was traded to the Astros and was told to spin it. Spin it good. He did and went from a pitcher with excellent stuff to a lights-out All-Star closer. 
"It was a very hard lesson and very discouraging for us," Assistant General Manager Daniel Adler said in October 2018. "On the other hand, in some ways, it was a really strong teachable moment for us. … In some ways, I think it makes it easier to go to the next player."
To ensure they never fail to communicate information like that again, the Twins built a strong bridge that extends from the player development system into the clubhouse. Knowledge discovered in the front office is integrated into the day-to-day. Pitchers acquired – no matter how much success they are having at their previous stop – will receive information to optimize them, be it through an arsenal change, mechanical tweak, or something else. 
Kenta Maeda. Chris Paddack. Matt Shoemaker. Sonny Gray. Jharel Cotton. Nobody is a finished product. 
With the Twins, Jorge López has gone down the same path to middling results. The changeup seems much improved and could be an excellent weapon. On the other hand, they may have come at the expense of his sinker's performance – especially in those 2-strike situations. 
There appear to be crossroads ahead. López will be part of the 2023 bullpen, but what will his approach be? Will he continue to lean into the sinker/changeup mix, hoping to perfect that combination by next season? Or will he return to throwing moving heat at the top of the zone?

With the Orioles, López was a dominant backend of the bullpen arm, outfitted with an upper 90s sinker and wiffleball movement at the top of the zone. He had some intriguing offspeed stuff, was missing bats, and locking down games. 
The Twins may have thought they could take a pitcher right near the cusp of being elite and make him that much better. However, that initial experiment has backfired. 
What happened?
Pick any stat you want from Jorge López and it was likely substantially worse with the Twins. 
Strikeouts? Down — from 28% with Baltimore to 16% with the Twins. Walk rate? Up — from 9% to 15%. Batting average allowed? Up — it was a clean 174 with Baltimore and grew to a grotesque 314 with the Twins. Hard hit balls? Up — exit velocity of balls over 95 mph went from 30% to 44%.
Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse tweeted on September 20 that López "was tremendous and always had excellent stuff… Finally harvested in the bullpen. Twins were dazzled by his 97 mph sinker and proceeded to turn him into a guy constantly behind in the count throwing breaking balls." 
The reality is the Twins kept him consistent in his sinker usage.
"There's been suggestions that we have him throwing more offspeed pitches than in Baltimore," Falvey later refuted to Reusse. "That's not true. He's still throwing a lot of fastballs and with the same velocity."
Which was an accurate statement but also… misleading. 
True, if you look at the overall pitch data of his sinker/two-seam fastball usage (50.3% in Baltimore and 50.9% with the Twins), they are basically the same. It is also true that López maintained that same crisp velocity in both uniforms (97.8 in Baltimore, 97.4 with the Twins). And finally, López threw more pitches while ahead in the count with the Twins than he did with the Orioles (so, no, he wasn’t “constantly behind in the count”). 
Falvey's narrative holds up as long as you only look as far as the total pitch type percentage and velocity. Consider two-strike counts. López used his sinker less frequently with the Twins — it went down from 47% to 40%. Equally as important was how he was using it. Watch this video.
Jorge Lopez Video.mp4  
If you watched those clips and thought I was trying to hypnotize you by staring at the blobbies, here's what's up: With Baltimore, López threw his sinker at the top of the zone with 2-strikes. With the Twins, it was middle and down. With the Orioles, it was thrown with conviction and intent. In Minnesota, instead of ripping it, it feels like he was guiding it, trying to get the right amount of run and sink. He was trying to blow their doors off. 
Look at how much the performance suffered.
Jorge López Sinker In 2-Strike Counts
  Thrown%
K
Upper 3rd%
Swinging Strike%
BAA
BALT
46.5
26
69.3
16.7
.122
MINN
39.5
3
46.7
2.2
.227
It was not just that the sinker's use was limited with the Twins — he also was throwing more changeups in 2-strike counts. 
With the Orioles, López got a bulk of his strikeouts with his sinker and used his other pitches fairly evenly (sliders 18%, curveballs 14%, and change up 18%). Hitters held a .044 batting average against his non-fastballs with 2-strikes. The Twins had him use the sinker less and all but eliminated the slider from his arsenal in the 2-strike scenarios, throwing more changeups (35%) compared to sliders (4%) and curveballs (15%). Hitters posted a .286 batting average against those pitches.
This is the element that Reusse was referring to, that López was not using his sinker as much and opting for other stuff (“throwing breaking balls”). 
When you look at his sinker's greasy metrics — such as tilt, release point, and movement — you'll find that it was a slightly different shape with the Orioles than it was with the Twins. The axis in which the ball spins out of his hand changed a bit (from 1:32 to 1:48), and his release point was about 2 inches lower (from 70.2 inches to 68.7 inches), and the vertical movement had two more inches of drop (from 8.9 induced vert to 6.7 induced vert). This was a concerted attempt at getting the ball to stay down in the zone. 
 
SINKER LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS)

It cannot be said with absolute certainty because no one has publicly acknowledged this, but the Twins have encouraged Jorge to adjust his sinker. The working theory is that by throwing it down in the zone, he can pair it better with his changeup (a solid pitch in its own right). Like the sinker, López slightly altered his changeup at release (different spin axis, lower release, etc.) and induced more horizontal run and drop. Those results were positive.
CHANGEUP LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS) 
 

Jorge López Changeup
  Thrown%
Swing%
K
Zone%
Swinging Strike %
BALT
15
43.5
6
31
14
MINN
17
42.1
9
24
24
In short, López’s changeup benefitted from the modification of his sinker whereas his sinker’s performance -- his prime pitch with the O’s – suffered. 
Plenty of what López is going through stems from the tough lessons the Twins learned in the Ryan Pressly trade. Notoriously Presley was traded to the Astros and was told to spin it. Spin it good. He did and went from a pitcher with excellent stuff to a lights-out All-Star closer. 
"It was a very hard lesson and very discouraging for us," Assistant General Manager Daniel Adler said in October 2018. "On the other hand, in some ways, it was a really strong teachable moment for us. … In some ways, I think it makes it easier to go to the next player."
To ensure they never fail to communicate information like that again, the Twins built a strong bridge that extends from the player development system into the clubhouse. Knowledge discovered in the front office is integrated into the day-to-day. Pitchers acquired – no matter how much success they are having at their previous stop – will receive information to optimize them, be it through an arsenal change, mechanical tweak, or something else. 
Kenta Maeda. Chris Paddack. Matt Shoemaker. Sonny Gray. Jharel Cotton. Nobody is a finished product. 
With the Twins, Jorge López has gone down the same path to middling results. The changeup seems much improved and could be an excellent weapon. On the other hand, they may have come at the expense of his sinker's performance – especially in those 2-strike situations. 
There appear to be crossroads ahead. López will be part of the 2023 bullpen, but what will his approach be? Will he continue to lean into the sinker/changeup mix, hoping to perfect that combination by next season? Or will he return to throwing moving heat at the top of the zone?

With the Orioles, Jorge López was a dominant backend of the bullpen arm, outfitted with an upper 90s sinker and wiffleball movement at the top of the zone. He had some intriguing offspeed stuff, was missing bats, and locking down games. 
The Twins may have thought they could take a pitcher right near the cusp of being elite and make him that much better. However, that initial experiment has backfired. 
What happened?
Pick any stat you want from López and it was likely substantially worse with the Twins. 
Strikeouts? Down — from 28% with Baltimore to 16% with the Twins. Walk rate? Up — from 9% to 15%. Batting average allowed? Up — it was a clean 174 with Baltimore and grew to a grotesque 314 with the Twins. Hard hit balls? Up — exit velocity of balls over 95 mph went from 30% to 44%.
Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse tweeted on September 20 that López "was tremendous and always had excellent stuff… Finally harvested in the bullpen. Twins were dazzled by his 97 mph sinker and proceeded to turn him into a guy constantly behind in the count throwing breaking balls." 
The reality is the Twins kept him consistent in his sinker usage.
"There's been suggestions that we have him throwing more offspeed pitches than in Baltimore," Falvey later refuted to Reusse. "That's not true. He's still throwing a lot of fastballs and with the same velocity."
Which was an accurate statement but also… misleading. 
True, if you look at the overall pitch data of his sinker/two-seam fastball usage (50.3% in Baltimore and 50.9% with the Twins), they are basically the same. It is also true that López maintained that same crisp velocity in both uniforms (97.8 in Baltimore, 97.4 with the Twins). And finally, López threw more pitches while ahead in the count with the Twins than he did with the Orioles (so, no, he wasn’t “constantly behind in the count”). 
Falvey's narrative holds up as long as you only look as far as the total pitch type percentage and velocity. Consider two-strike counts. López used his sinker less frequently with the Twins — it went down from 47% to 40%. Equally as important was how he was using it. Watch this video.
We have arrived at the point of the analysis where I post heat maps, charts, and video clips to support the trends and tendencies outlined above. I have done that and more but that content is reserved for Twins Daily Caretaker’s eyes only. 
Fear not: You too can become a Caretaker for as low as $4/month. In addition to getting to read the rest of the meaty López post, you also get free Twins Daily publications, Winter Meltdown tickets (WHICH ARE GOING EXTREMELY FAST) and other special recognition. 
Finally, if you do jump into the TD Caretaker pool and read the rest of this article and are not completely satisfied, you can totally call me out publicly on Twitter – @HagemanParker.

We’re SO excited to announce that this year’s special Twins guest at Twins Daily’s Winter Meltdown will be Glen Perkins, who needs absolutely no introduction. (But we’ll do one anyways.)
If you grew up in a cave, Glen “Perk” Perkins pitched for the Twins for his whole MLB career, from 2006 through 2017. That included serving as the Twins dominant closer from 2011 through 2015. During that five-year stretch, he made the All-Star team three times and compiled 120 saves with a 2.84 ERA. (That is not a typo.)
But that isn’t his only connection to Minnesota. He also attended and played for Stillwater High School and the University of Minnesota. And he still lives in the Twin Cities and is a television analyst for the Twins and Bally Sports North. And now, of course, he’s coming to our party.
If you want to learn even more about him, just come to the Meltdown. He’ll be on stage along with Patrick Reusse at the event, which takes place at The Pourhouse in Downtown Minneapolis on Saturday, January 28th from 5 – 8. It’s just a couple blocks from Twins Fest, where you’ll likely be anyway. You’ll be joined by 300+ Twins fans, media members, Twins execs and many more to celebrate the upcoming season.
All week we’ve been unveiling the great stuff your $40 ticket gets you, including these goodies:
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I've been listening and reading reactions from media, fans, this blog, etc. since FA opened. I'm pretty sure the front office went home pissed, bummed out, confused, and with all sorts of mixed emotions when Carlos Correa signed with the San Francisco Giants. It's deflating when an agent calls to say their client is going to go in another direction. 
I know this is the job we/they have signed up for, so it comes with criticism. You put a lot of time, effort, and emotions into something and must have it play out the way you want. It's even more exhausting when your job is evaluated every which way by outsiders, and you truly are doing what you think is best. You're not trying to be cheap or make it look like you're just putting in effort for show. You honestly are trying the best you can, given your circumstances. For fans and media, the armchair quarterback stuff is fun. I get it.
Did the Twins get played in this Correa saga? 
Were they played? A little by Correa's actions throughout 2022, but Derek and Thad are smart. They have dealt with Boras plenty. They know his playbook. They took a shot with the initial contract and tried to make the best of it. They knew it was a one-year deal unless Correa had a TERRIBLE year in 2022. 
They wanted to sell him and his family on the area, the culture, and the ballpark and show him what he could have. A season-long recruiting visit, so to speak. Before NIL, that stuff used to work in college. It can work in capped leagues where you must find advantages outside player salaries. You take care of the players' families. You upgrade the travel accommodations, nutrition, etc. -- things that don't count against a salary cap. It's a little more challenging in baseball. Those two knew the risks they assumed when entering this contract.
Plenty of comments claim the Twins should have known that 10 years for $285 would not get it done. A couple of points here:
Minnesota knew they would not be the highest bidder in the end. They were hoping to keep it close enough to stay in the race. Like many businesses, they hoped the relationship between the manager, club, ownership, and player meant something. 
Also, having been involved in player negotiations for many years, Boras took his best offers to San Francisco Giants and whoever else and told them you had 24 to 72 hours to match or beat it. San Francisco chose to be the highest bidder, for better or worse. Only time will tell. 
The Twins didn't get beat because ownership is cheap. They aren't cheap - they are disciplined. And I realize that makes fans upset. Some fans want the emotional owner who will do "whatever it takes." 
Were they aggressive enough while having Correa?
Phil Mackey had a little rant on YouTube yesterday saying the Twins should have been more aggressive in other areas, particularly pitching, for the one season they knew they had Correa. 
At first, I thought Phil was correct. But I thought about it more. 
You can argue with the results, but they were aggressive in acquiring starting pitching. They traded for the three of them for the 2022 season. If you want to debate the individual pitchers, I can understand that. Or, if you're going to argue trading for injured pitchers because they cost less, you can do that, too. The results were mixed from poor, to below average, to solid. But they were aggressive. We have yet to learn who else they tried to acquire via trade. We know the end results.
When players hire Boras in a situation as Correa did, they hire him to be a fixer. Here's how: 
In that first contract, he works on finding the best fit so the player can reestablish his value. Boras calls it a "pillow contract." Then he usually searches for the most significant deal he can find, either by Average Annual Value (AAV) or by total guaranteed money. Sometimes a big-time Boras free agent takes a little less to go where they want to go, but not often. That's the inherent risk of chasing "big fish," particularly chasing Boras clients. 
If you plan contingencies, you can avoid getting stuck holding the bag at the end. The Twins planned contingencies. It does not mean they will work out, but it's been reported they've met with Swanson and Rodon already. We don't know what options C, D, and E are. 
The focus on Correa
Aaron Gleeman wrote a fantastic article on The Athletic, laying it all out there. You should read it if you still need to. There are a lot of areas to fix on the Major League roster for 2023. 
They still need a shortstop. They need pitching. They need offense. They need pitching. (Yes, I know I listed it already). 
There are ways to work the roster without Correa and still improve it. It's still only December.
Jack Goin served in various roles in Baseball Operations with the Minnesota Twins from 2003-2017, including Director of Baseball Research and Director of Pro Scouting. He most recently served as a Pro Scout and Player Personnel Analyst with the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2018-2021

Farmer will cost the team between $5 million and $6 million via the arbitration process, and they had to give up pitching prospect Casey Legumina to get him. No front office–least of all the one run by Derek Falvey and Thad Levine–acquires a player at that price without a good reason. Here, in a nutshell, is that reason.
Batted Balls 88+ MPH, Pulled, Launch Angle 10-40 Degrees, as a Percentage of All Plate Appearances, 2022
Player
%
Rank (of 357)
Carlos Correa
7.3
134
Dansby Swanson
7.6
119
Kyle Farmer
7.9
106
Admittedly, that’s not the world’s most elucidating nutshell. Let’s crack the nut open and take a closer look, though. This statistic (let’s call it the Bomba Rate, for reasons we’ll get into shortly) tells us at what rate a hitter hits the ball somewhat hard in the air toward their pull field. (Why 88 miles per hour? You can read this blog post from sabermetrician Tom Tango for more detail, but in short, that exit velocity best reflects the point at which batted balls begin to rise in average value.)
That’s nice, you might say, (1) but surely Correa and Swanson hit their pulled flies harder than does Farmer, and anyway, (2) the differences in their rates are vanishingly small, and (3) it’s just one very small part of a hitter’s game. The first thing is true, but it turns out that it doesn’t matter that much. It’s nice to hit the ball much harder than 88 miles per hour, or to get the launch angles exactly right when pulling it, but meeting the criteria matters much more than excelling within them when you do.
The second thing is also true, to some extent, but it turns out that an individual’s Bomba Rate is very sticky from year to year. We’re taking outcomes out of the equation here. It’s all about how often you generate a certain kind of contact, and the denominator is all plate appearances, so the samples are of a good size, the number captures a skill and an approach pretty cleanly, and the leaderboards tend to look quite similar from one year to the next. 
In fact, Correa’s Bomba Rate actually rose considerably in 2022, from a below-average 6.0 in 2021. Swanson’s was exactly 7.6 in 2021, too. Farmer, meanwhile, had an even more impressive 8.7-percent Bomba Rate in 2021. (Remember that number. We’re going to revisit it.)
The third thing is superficially true, but as the rates we’ve already seen imply, it’s no smaller a share of a player’s game than walks. The league leaders hit Bombas over 10 percent of the time. The trailers do it barely 2 percent of the time. That gap matters, because Bombas have very high expected run values. In other words, while they might not be frequent, Bombas aren’t really a small part of offense. Their payoffs make them worth chasing.
This is all especially important when evaluating the Farmer addition, because if I had to sum up the Twins’ offensive philosophy in a single sentence, it would go like this: Hit the ball in the air, to your pull field. No viable approach could ever be quite that simple, of course, but theirs comes close. 
No other team in MLB emphasizes this quite as clearly. Knowing that this is what they’re always doing explains almost every individual move they make. Here’s the list of all 2022 Twins who came to the plate at least 200 times, with the same information given for the three shortstops above.
Bomba Rates, Minnesota Twins, 2022
Player
%
Rank (of 357)
Byron Buxton
11.0
7
Jorge Polanco
9.7
30
Jose Miranda
9.7
33
Nick Gordon
9.5
36
Luis Arraez
9.2
42
Gary Sanchez
7.9
103
Carlos Correa
7.3
134
Ryan Jeffers
7.2
139
Max Kepler
6.7
179
Gio Urshela
6.2
205
Gilberto Celestino
2.9
347
I won’t further inundate you with numbers, but name a homegrown Twins hitter from the last several seasons–Mitch Garver, Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario–and they rank highly in Bomba Rate. Guys like Correa come through and see their Bomba Rates rise. The few free-agent hitters in whom the team invests (Marwin Gonzalez, Josh Donaldson) run high Bomba Rates. 
There’s more. Jake Cave had a Celestinish 4.0-percent Bomba Rate in 2022, and was waived immediately after the season. Kyle Garlick had a Buxtonian 10.5-percent rate, and the team re-signed him. The Twins kept both of their hitting coaches and promoted a third to their big-league team from within the organization this fall. Why did they do so, even after a frustrating finish to the season? Because those coaches got their guys to keep on Bomba-ing.
Highest Team Bomba Rates, MLB, 2022
Team
Bomba Rate
Dodgers
8.6 %
Braves
7.8
Twins
7.7
Cardinals
7;7
Mariners
7.6
Astros
7.5
Bombas are distinct from Barrels, the Statcast statistic pushed out by the league with which you might be familiar. Bombas are more specific, and they’re about process, not reverse-engineering from results. This is a distillation of what the Twins are encouraging hitters to do at almost all times. 
I dubbed it the Bomba Rate because, when Minnesota had an 8.3-percent rate in 2019, that figure not only led the league by a full percentage point, but was eight tenths of a point higher than any other team had managed in any of the previous four years of the Statcast Era. The Twins led the league in this statistic again in 2021, and as you can see, even a barrage of injuries only dragged them down to third in 2022.
You couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to, build your entire offensive identity around this skill, but focusing on this type of batted ball as the optimal outcome of every trip to the plate has positive knock-on effects, too. For instance, pulling your fly balls puts batted-ball spin on your side, instead of having it work against you. 
Also, an approach geared toward this kind of contact requires one to wait for a pitch on which this kind of contact is possible, or to find a different way to force pitchers to throw such a pitch. In addition, whiffing all the time dents your Bomba Rate just the way it dents other numbers, because you can’t hit the ball in the air to the pull field if you don’t hit it at all. Bomba Rate is a sound primary criterion around which to build an offense, and the Twins seem to use it as a firmer guide for their choices than any other team in the majors.
That doesn’t mean that they won’t bring back Correa, whose Bomba Rate is still strong for a shortstop, or that Farmer’s Bomba Rate was the only reason they targeted him. This could turn out to be a placeholder move, and Farmer could end up a mere role player. Unlike the moves that brought in Correa and Urshela last winter, though, the Twins proactively sought this one out. 
They might also think their organizational plan can help Farmer build upon what he did in Cincinnati. For one thing, he played in pain for part of the second half last season, after a Spencer Strider fastball traveling at 100 miles per hour hit him in the hand. He was lucky to avoid fractures, but before that moment, he was batting .280/.345/.411 for the season, with an 8.7-percent Bomba Rate–identical to the one he’d posted in 2021. 
After missing a few days, he returned to the lineup, but he batted just .235/.290/.366 the rest of the way, and his Bomba Rate fell to 7.3 percent. Even the latter figure isn’t bad, but given better health, he’s shown that he can exceed it, and the Twins would drool over the number he posted for a season and a half before the plunking.
Speaking of that plunking, there’s a little more to Farmer’s profile, too. One way that he generates so many authoritatively pulled fly balls is by crowding home plate and asserting control of the outer edge of the zone. 
It’s really one way for him to overcome profound struggles against right-handed pitchers, whom he’s never hit as hard as he hits lefties. Since the start of 2021, he’s batted .286/.350/.528 against southpaws, but just .250/.304/.358 against righties. His average exit velocity against lefties is 88.4 miles per hour, but against righties, it’s just 85.6. His average launch angle is 4.8 degrees higher against lefties, too. 
That might read like a platoon player, and it’s possible that’s exactly the role he will fill. However, Farmer’s proximity to the plate has led to 27 times being hit by pitches by righties over the last two years, which (in combination with his good contact rate) sets a higher floor for him than many marginal right-handed hitters have against same-handed hurlers. 
Those numbers also came while facing lefties just 25 percent of the time for the Reds. Urshela, Jeffers, and Buxton all saw lefties between 29 and 30 percent of the time in 2022, so that’s a fairer forecast of how often Farmer will have the platoon advantage within the Minnesota offense. 
There’s an entirely different article to be written about the various defensive and off-field considerations that went into the Twins’ pursuit of Farmer. In his offensive profile alone, though, there are several things that made him a good candidate to land with Minnesota, and seeing what they saw in him can help fans better understand what the team looks for and tries to instill in all hitters.

Before we start disparaging Miranda’s late-season performance, let’s consider some of his strengths. 

His 117 weighted runs created plus – a rate stat that takes into consideration park factors and current run environment of the league – was the seventh-best by a Minnesota Twins rookie and tied with notable legend Rod Carew.

From June through August, he led the team with 49 runs driven in and collected 74 hits (behind the eventual AL hit king, Luis Arraez). He was anointed the AL’s Rookie of the Month in July. He carried the Twins offense as best he could through a stretch in which the team was preparing for a late season nosediIn that time Miranda showed a keen ability to hit non-fastballs well. His .325 average against non-fastballs during that stretch was the 5th best in major league baseball. This is noteworthy considering how often rookie hitters struggle with spin: Over the last ten years, rookies have posted a .230/.270/.378 line against non-fastballs. 

Unsurprisingly, pitchers adjusted their game plan to Miranda after he showed the propensity to wallop non-fastballs left in the strike zone. In August, teams started to shift to throwing him more sliders and locating them off the plate. Miranda began to swing more often and chased more frequently and so teams continued that trend throughout the rest of the season. 

We have arrived at the point of the analysis where I normally post heat maps, charts, and video clips to support the trends and tendencies outlined above. I have done that and more but that content is reserved for Twins Daily Caretaker’s eyes only. 

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Nevertheless, Miranda’s performance began to cool in August and leveled out for the remainder of the year. He hit .262 over his final 136 plate appearances with far less power production.
How did teams adjust to him and what does it say about his potential going forward? 
Before we start disparaging Miranda’s late season performance, let’s consider some of his strengths. 
His 117 weighted runs created plus – a rate stat that takes into consideration park factors and current run environment of the league – was the seventh best by a Minnesota Twins rookie and tied with notable legend Rod Carew.
From June through August, he led the team with 49 runs driven in and collected 74 hits (behind the eventual AL hit king, Luis Arraez). He was anointed the AL’s Rookie of the Month in July. He carried the Twins offense as best he could through a stretch in which the team was preparing for a late season nosedive.
In that time Miranda showed a keen ability to hit non-fastballs well. His .325 average against non-fastballs during that stretch was the 5th best in major league baseball. This is noteworthy considering how often rookie hitters struggle with spin: Over the last ten years, rookies have posted a .230/.270/.378 line against non-fastballs. 
Unsurprisingly, pitchers adjusted their game plan to Miranda after he showed the propensity to wallop non-fastballs left in the strike zone. In August, teams started to shift to throwing him more sliders and locating them off the plate. Miranda began to swing more often and chased more frequently and so teams continued that trend throughout the rest of the season. 

Miranda did an exceptional job of ambushing pitchers early in the count and this coincided with his ability to hit in-zone breaking balls hard. As pitchers tried to use get-me-over breaking balls to work ahead early, Miranda would attack. Spotting this trend, teams adjusted their approach and began to throw him breaking stuff away rather than risk catching too much of the zone.
Let’s acknowledge here that the division of the data is not as clean as simply turning the calendar. Teams did not wake up on September 1st and decided to throw Miranda more sweeping sliders off the plate – they started to phase those in more in August. But that strategy proved fruitful and likely enticed other teams to follow suit.
Miranda’s success may have prompted another strategy for the opposition. Earlier in the year, he held an average platoon advantage rate against relief pitchers. Meaning that teams were not necessarily ensuring they would gain an edge with a right-handed pitcher on the mound. This year, right-handed hitters in baseball had the platoon advantage against relief pitching in 23.6% of the plate appearances. From June through August, Miranda was at 21.6% (but he held a 27% advantage in June and July alone).
  Platoon Advantage %
MLB Platoon (RP vs RHB)
24%
Miranda RP Platoon (June-July)
27%
Miranda RP Platoon (Sept-Oct)
10%
There are two reasons why teams began to make sure they had a right-handed pitcher on the mound when Miranda came to the plate. 
The first is simple lineup construction. In June and July, Miranda often hit behind left-handed sluggers like Trevor Larnach and Alex Kirilloff. Opponents were more likely to use a lefty reliever against Larnach and Kirilloff while rolling the dice for an at bat with Miranda. Meanwhile, in August and after, Miranda was hitting behind Correa and Buxton. 
Once Larnach and Kirilloff were out of the lineup, teams were able to use a nasty righty reliever against Miranda – especially considering he was positioned with Correa ahead of him and Nick Gordon (who hit .190 against all relievers from June onward) following him. Miranda’s percentage of plate appearances with the platoon advantage fell from 21.6% to 10.4%.
Similarly, like the blobby heat map above suggests, teams realized that they could stymie him with sliders and they would dispatch relievers to do just that. In his hot stretch, he saw sliders 27% of the time. During the last month and change, he got sliders 47% of the time out of the pen. 
Miranda Vs Relievers (Pitch Selection)
Date
Slider%
June-July
27%
September-October
47%
So those factors explain some of the decline in the latter portion of the season. The other element was how Miranda slowly incorporated bigger movements into his swing.
Take a look at the video below:
What started to happen in August is that Miranda’s barrel tip – a rhythm mechanism during the load process that some hitters use to time up a pitcher – got more pronounced. His hands got lower and further away from his body as he would tip the barrel further toward the left-handed batters’ box. 

Why this happened is unclear. It’s possible that the movement slowly got bigger as Miranda felt the need to add more power to his swing. After all, his home run totals sagged later in the year and as someone in the heart of the order, he may have felt the need to press. 
Similarly, Miranda may have also been aware that pitchers were throwing him more offspeed and breaking balls and the added movement was meant to keep him back for a split second longer. However, it is hard to subscribe to the latter theory since he was so successful against breaking stuff previous to the late season issues. 
Admittedly, Miranda would get to the same launch point (which some would argue is more essential than anything else) at roughly the same time but it’s hard not to conclude that the additional movement is mucking up the system in his timing and swing pattern to some degree. Fractions of inches and seconds matter a lot when trying to get to a round ball on time. 
The combination of the two – a change in how teams were attacking him as well as the small adjustment in his swing pattern – may have been a reason why his late season performance dipped. 
There is a lot to like about Miranda’s future based on his recent past. You have to appreciate how well he was able to hit spin as well as fastballs. The key will be to adjust to that outside slider and stay locked in on spin middle-in. His flatter bat path allowed him to maintain optimal launch angle better than most rookies (31.7% of his balls in play were between 10 and 30 degrees – 3rd highest rate among rookies) and allowed him to spray the ball to all fields with strength in the barrel (his 93 MPH average exit velo to center was the 2nd highest among rookies). 
As hot as Miranda was for the two month stretch in June and July, it is difficult to envision him maintaining that pace over an entire season. Likewise, with his offensive tools and consistent ability to perform at every minor league level, it’s hard to see him replicating the September/October performance for a long stretch, too. 
Based on his swing and his tendency to adjust, Jose Miranda will continue to find success at the plate. Look for him to be an offensive force in the middle of the order.