Trov

I brought this up before, but depending on when or if season starts, there will be a lot of questions the players have. Worst case, no season at all, what happens with 1 year contracts, were they served? What happens with service time, does it accrue? What happens with arbitration, will another year be added, do you use the 2019 stats to decide worth? I have seen players being optioned to AAA recently, is that because the assumption is season was going to start soon and the figure is they would accrue service time if they are not optioned? Should players that still have option years that would not need to be waived be optioned to stop service time, would that raise a grievance? There are so many questions. The CBA may have the answers and I am sure lawyers on both sides are looking into it, but it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Even if half a season is played, many of the same questions will come up with service time. Think the questions about option years and contracts would be moot, but for many young players service time is a big thing.

To me, the correct approach is what Ted Williams said many years ago when asked the key to hitting. He famously said, "pick a good pitch to hit and don't miss it." Sounds simple, but the way I break it down is this. Go up with a plan, whatever it is, and stick with it. Hopefully you can be good enough to foul off pitches that are borderline. Then you should get a pitch you like. Hitters that are good at hitting fastballs will want to hit first pitch more often, as fastballs on first pitch are most common, unless pitcher is "pitching backwards" However, to go further, do not just swing because you have timing right, you should also look a zone. If it is not where you want, okay may be a strike may not. If it is fine you have two more, if it is a ball great. Mitch Garver talked about his plan at the plate last year. It was to look middle and swing at those pitches and take any borderline ones. So unless first pitch was middle he would take. He would even take borderline with 2 strikes. Sure sometimes he got rang up, but in his mind he could not hit those pitches well, so why do the pitcher a favor, make the umpire make the call. Other players have different approach where they will fight off those pitches. Either way they have a plan. Sure, Eddie his plan is swing at anything and everything, but that is his plan. I have no issue players swinging first pitch or not, as long as they have a plan for the at bat. Take Buxton for example, when he is struggling, or maybe even when doing well, I feel he never thinks out his at-bats. I have said many times when he walks up to plate, here comes slider off the plate, and he swings, then again and he swings, then again and he swings. Out on three straight chases, because the book on him is slider away. So his plan should be, look inside or at least middle. Anything away, just leave it, if it is a fast ball that clips corner good on the pitcher, but he has better odds taking outside first pitch than he does to swing at it.

It boggles my mind to imagine how in perfect world keeping those three and they developing the way they did. Pressly was only one that was close to what he was when Twins got rid of him. Hendricks as mentioned had to of changed things to develop way he did, assuming it is all natural, he was out of Twins organization well before the advanced thinking FO we have now. Looking at spin rate, pitching up in zone, and all those new found ways to get guys out was VooDoo to Gardy and company. Anderson, until he shows he was not a flash in a pan it was just great story for him, much like Dobnic for us.

I think this season, whenever it starts, will be a hear were Arraez will need to make adjustments. With spray charts leading to shifts this day in age, it is not far fetch to imagine defenses like suggested above. When this started happening with Joe later in career, why it took that long, he struggled a lot. He worked his whole life to smoke balls up the middle and to left field, with little times pulling the ball. He was praised for his ability to find the hole, until defenses said, "well if you always hit up the middle or to left field, we will finally start putting players there." This made matters worse for him when so many people tore Joe down for trying to bunt for hits, I will not go deep into that issue, but point is Joe took awhile to adjust and never really did as well as we hoped he would. Arraez, on the other had, I feel will make needed adjustments to continue to find holes. He is great at fighting off pitches he does not want to hit waiting for the one he does. He seems to go up there with a plan of looking at defense and says this is the pitch I want to hit in that spot. I agree with Jimbo above, that if 3B will play way in trying to stop possible bunts and allowing middle infiled to play extra deep, Arraez will look to just serve the ball over 3b head. Arraez reminds me of the savey old softball player that knows how to put the ball where they want to get on. Only time will tell if he really is or because scouting is much less in minors and now he will be looked under a microscope if he can make the needed changes as defenses change to him.

I doubt the whole season will be canceled. Too much money involved to do that. Of course, if the virus extends for months then that changes my analysis. I would expect a few different possibilities. First, if it is only 2 weeks, they can either start as normal, they were starting earlier than normal, but of course this may be affected by other uses of facilities. They could just cut off those 2 weeks and treat like weather delays by either doing double headers down the road. If it goes into May or June, then I would think the league would get a knew schedule put together with a shortened season. This will have a ripple affect the longer the suspension is. First, will players get paid and service time? As mentioned how will that be decided, will it be prorated to time played like back in 95? Most likely not same because that was a player strike, this is a league ordered decision. So players will demand pay at minimum, but will a contract year tick then? What about having a player under good team contract now they lost that, or service time? Players will not want to give up that time, because they will be 1 year older for FA then. How would you decided that for each player, would a player that was expected to play as a rookie would he get it, a player in his second year that has bounced up and down, would he get it? Rosters were not set so you cannot simply say if they were on active roster or not. So many questions that will have to be decided and will make it harder the longer this lasts.

I learned in college many years ago about kinetic linking, which is much of what this article is about. The concept is that each small movement works like a chain to get to the final movement, and you use your large muscles, glut, quad, lats, ect. to get more energy for your small muscles. This is very important for pitchers, boxers, or anyone that uses shoulder movement. Many people would think get shoulder strong to throw harder, but it is get legs strong and work them correctly to throw harder. It just took this technology for many people to buy into and understand how it all works. It is something that has been known for a long time, but having a science guy know something and telling a non-science person that it works is harder without evidence you can show that person.

I would use player historical data, both majors and minors. Of course you would have to reflect minors data to limited games. It is not perfect, but think that would be best. You can take out the years that 1 injury ended a season or left it out completely, but you could even take other players that had suffered a similar injury and similar recovery to get some date to expect. Of course each person is different, so again not perfect, but better than assuming they will play 150 games each season when over, say 8 years of a career they only played on average 100.

When I saw the headline I thought I was going to not like the article, but you flipped it on me. I agree with Buxton, those singles he turns into doubles really affects those things. I agree Arreaz numbers may not look great, but he is not the type of hitter that numbers can predict, if they could he would not even be a MLB player. He follows the hit where they are not, not hit as hard as can. Sure a 5 hopper through the hole may not look great, or a slap flare over the infield, but he gets on that is what counts.

I get that leg kicks can be bad, but there are players that have had great careers with leg kicks. Now if it becomes a major problem hopefully he is open to fixing it. To me, until it becomes a problem do not change it, the old saying if it is not broke do not fix it. Sometimes you can do more harm doing things like that.

I have believed for a long time, Buxton's biggest problem is his willingness to try something different. He keeps making changes to swing, leg kick, approach, ect. that he just cannot stick with something and make small adjustments. What also did not help is the change in organization philosophy, and his endless injuries.

I am more of a fan of having good bats off the bench than stacking. The stacking can backfire just as much as it helps. First, I am fine with intentional walks from time to time, more runners on base and all. However, think about this. You have normal set up of say Kepler, Polanco, Cruz, I see no one walked if you bring in lefty, which doubt you would to just face Kepler. So change it up, Cruz, Eddie, Donaldson, not sure if that is order just giving example. They bring in top righty, pitcher to Cruz, walk Eddie, then Donaldson, I am fine with that, Donaldson gets to hit with runner on. I would not want a 3 side stacked, maybe 2 in a row but 3 I think will backfire, assuming they do not have good splits.

I hope the pitchers put up huge seasons that lead to need for big contracts, even if Twins do not sign, if they have huge seasons good for this one.

Nice article. It is nice read up on what these surgeries mean. Sounds like he should be back to normal, but could linger into the future. I would not be surprised if this is his last season here. I know I will not be cheering him on based on his Astro time. I do not wish him any ill will though and hope Twins perform well.

If we can get at least a couple MLB starting players out of the group that is all you can ask for. Sometimes you will get all-stars, and even fewer you will get Hall of Famers, but if each draft you can get 2 decent starters or more, it really is a good draft.

I did not get a chance to watch him yesterday, but I do enjoy a good pitcher over just a thrower. Pitchers age well, throwers do not. A pitcher with good change of speeds and movement can get good hitters out. Sure, will he hang a pitch from time to time, all do. I love listening to Katt do announcing as he talks about using the whole strike zone, something that fell out of favor for down in the zone sinkers for ahwile, but now is back to pitching up at top, if not out of the zone. Mixing speed, location, and movement will keep hitters off balance, unless they are the Astros and can see the future.

Clearly the difference is the timing of the type of seasons the player was coming off of. Sox hoping Moncada will continue to improve and will come out to be a bargain, but if last season was more a blip and not the norm for Moncada, they will regret the contract. For Twins, they took a chance on two guys that had shown some level of promise, but were on low years. The players did not bet on themselves and took the money when it was there. Both had bounce back years, that the front office was expecting and the players may have lost out on significantly more money, but hard to say no to life changing money, when at any moment an injury can end your career, or drop your value.

This day in age, I do not think any prospect gets blocked. They may be slowed to debut, but outright blocked no. Sure, Kirloff was in a different organization would there be more of a push to have him make the club, at least based on his early spring numbers and prospect status, most likely. But, we have three decent hitting outfielders and two top fielding at their respective spots. However, if he keeps raking early in season, he will get his chance because he will force it. The only reason he won't is if everyone is healthy and all crushing. There will always be a spot to be found if you can help the team win. No team will ever sit player simply because they have a MLB player at their position, they will find a spot. Now, if the prospect is not forcing the hand, then should they come up, no so then they are not getting blocked either.

I like the Littell pick. He was one of those starter or bullpen guys, and history has shown if you borderline, you normally excel in bullpen when you go all in as a pen guy. It is easier now a days to swallow that role, as the money is shifting a bit even to set up guys. In the past, all the money went to starters, even back end guys, and except for top closers, pen guys did not get paid much. Now that is shifting some, some guys are more willing to embrace the pen role sooner in their career. I hope littell is that guy.

First, this comment is based on my understanding of how chase percentage is determined. That being, if the hitter had not swung, what the umpire "should" have called it based on the electronic zone. If my understanding is accurate I have a problem with the assumption that chasing is a bad thing fundamentally. Until the electronic zone comes into play taking a borderline pitch that should be a ball still has huge risk of taking a strike. So the real question is what kind of pitches are being chased. Just as others have commented on, chasing a borderline fastball is not such a bad thing where contact percentage is very high. I mean if the ball is half an inch off the plate, does it really change the odds of hitting it hard, most likely not. However, chasing a ball high around the neck, bouncing in the dirt, or way off the plate reduces contact percentage and more importantly hard hit contact significantly. Those are the pitches Buxton needs to cut down on. Chase percentage does not take into account how bad the chase was. You point to Garver very low chase percentage, but he made a point of saying he was going to swing at middle middle as much as possible and leave boarder line pitches. I have not confirmed this, but he most likely took a lot of strikes on that edge of the zone, not saying he should have swung, but he made choice to risk of a called strike. The other issue with the stat of chase percentage as a whole is it does not address when the chase was. For example, if the chase is even a boarder line chase with no strikes that may be something to address, even worse if it is a bad chase with no strikes. However, a boarder line chase with two strikes fighting off a pitch that could be called a strike, to me, is a good chase. Therefore, not all chases are created equal. Also, chasing a boarder line fastball off the plate that gets driven hard is not a bad chase, but taking that pitch that gets called a strike, because umpires get those calls wrong at about a 50% clip, is a bad take because now fall behind in a count. One final thing. Changing a players approach that has worked, at least good, for their career does not always improve their numbers. Of course, if you can get a player to stop swinging at pitches they cannot hit is a good idea, but just saying reducing overall chase percentage will be good results is flawed.

I would not look at total war for the best trio, although it is a way to measure. However, when you look at Santana led teams he was so high that even the low Silva still made it look better, but I would take the overall 91 team over the 2004 because the third guy was vastly different. Sure the number 1 was better, but I would take slightly less valuable number 1 and higher number 3. That is just me.

I think the prospects he impacts the most is on the prospects willingness to listen. I think it is great the Twins have targeted vets that like to teach young guys. Not all like to. Some guys react better to active players telling them something than coaches, even if both telling them same thing.

If they were looking to have back up CF I think they would have sought one on market and not trading for one. There were a few that could have been Kepler level defense on the open market they did not seek. I doubt they go this route.

How about this? Every series is 3 game series, you get a point for winning the series and three points for sweeping. No more win or loss just points. Every team plays every team for a home and away series, this would actually increase total games to 174. Both leagues play by same rules, do not care which is adopted, but play same rules. Then top 16 teams make playoffs based on total points and ranked 1-16, no reseeding based on round. It starts with best of 3 for first round, best of 5 second round, best of 7 third round, then best of 7 again for final round. Finally, do away with extra innings, but have a HR off. You pick your hitter, but each one can only be used 1 time until all others used, and your BP pitcher then throws pitches for 1 min to the hitter, who ever has most HR that team wins. If tied after 1 round, then do a race around the bases, after spinning around at homeplate for 10 seconds before you take off, make it a relay race including coaches and bat boys.

I think the most important thing is to get players that agree with sticking with the process. Baseball in the last decade has been in a transition of "old school" into analytics and advanced stats. I love the fact the new group uses things like spray charts, tendencies, and willing to buck the trend of the "old school" norms. How many times I would get furious with Gardy and his "old school" comments about oppisite handed pitchers, despite many times that pitcher having reverse splits, but the "old school" book says have opposite hitters. The classic, he is our guy or he is due against him, only to have the pitcher give up a HR to a guy that has owned him. At least now the people making those calls look at things like that and not just plug and play.

I would have to do a dive back to the original posts when the trade was first announced a couple weeks ago. My post was a little bit of hyperbole I admit, but the point was people are acting like we are missing out on a huge piece, when we really have no clue what we are missing out on.