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It can take a little while for fans to figure out what a new coach is all about on their favorite team. For instance, it took a while into last season for Twins to hear about James Rowson’s hitting theories, both with Byron Buxton’s struggles and rebound as well as Eddie Rosario’s development as a hitter. Now imagine how long it takes for a coach to learn about all their pupils. That’s even more true of new Twins pitching coach Garvin Alston, whose team is coming off using 36 pitchers last season -- if you count Chris Gimenez, anyhow -- and is already headed toward using its 19th -- if you count Ryan LaMarre, anyhow -- of the year with John Curtiss being added to the roster on Monday. Not only did Alston have to prepare for the expected Opening Day roster -- which even still saw additions all offseason and into spring training with Jake Odorizzi and Lance Lynn -- but he also had non-roster invitees and other key players in the minor leagues to prepare for. Alston, who got a cup of coffee in the big leagues with the Colorado Rockies in 1996 and spent eight years in pro ball altogether, figured he better get to work quickly. “You’re absolutely correct,” Alston said of the process being a little daunting at first when the Twins brought him on last November. “Once I got the job, and I got all the information and the new computer came in, I was able to get into our system here. I started going about an hour, or an hour-and-a-half per day of picking a person and watching film on them. I did that with everyone on the roster and some of our non-roster invitees who came in.” Now that’s just the prep during the winter. Once spring starts, he can put his eyeballs to work in real-time, watching guys go through their workouts and in-game action once Grapefruit League games begin. “Through spring training, you kind of watch and see the same things you saw on film, and you kind of get an idea from there what they can and cannot do well,” Alston said. “You kind of let them go from there. It’s been more about learning the person and the personality right now. That’s been my biggest challenge. So we go to dinner to dinner together and talk quite a bit in the clubhouse.” Everyone has beliefs about pitching foundationally, and obviously, Alston is no exception. Pitching coaches range from the nameless and faceless to the legends like Dave Duncan, Leo Mazzone, Mel Stottlemyre, Rick Peterson, Don Cooper and Ray Searage to name some of the more well-known recent guys. This is an excerpt from a full-length story appearing at Zone Coverage here. Please click through to support the content.

A season ago, the Minnesota Twins brought in James Rowson as their hitting coach. Following the dismissal of Tom Brunansky, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine handpicked a candidate of a lesser known name. WIth what he had done with some of the hitter in the Yankees organization however, there was excitement regarding potential results. Fast forward a year, and the growth with some young Twins hitters was incredible. In 2018, Minnesota will be looking for more of the same from their new pitching coach, Garvin Alston. The Twins are coming off a 2017 that saw records in starting pitchers used (16), and arms as a whole (36). Knowing this club is coming into 2018 with high expectations and again focused on the Postseason, getting more consistent results on the mound is a must. In that regard, there's no coach more integral to Minnesota taking the next step forward than Alston. A pitcher for the Colorado Rockies during his brief MLB career, Alston has spent almost the entirety of his coaching life with the Oakland Athletics. He was twice a minor league pitching coach, while serving as a pitching coordinator in 2015. During the 2016 season, worked as the bullpen coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and then he headed back to the Bay Area to serve in the same capacity for the A's a season ago. Much like Rowson was able to help players like Byron Buxton and Jorge Polanco foster success down the stretch a season ago, Alston will be tasked with growth in 2018. Kyle Gibson may be the area for greatest success, but there should be no shortage of impressionable arms looking to reach the next level. Among all Twins starters, no one is looking to replicate their second half as much as Gibson is. The 3.57 ERA across his final 12 starts (and 2.92 ERA across the final 8) would position him as a treue middle-of-the-rotation arm. After scuffling hard out of the gate, and looking like a non-tender candidate halfway through 2017, Gibby officially turned it around. With the offseason in his rear view mirror, and a solid spring training under his belt, Gibson will need to replicate his late season efforts in hopes of bolstering the Twins chances. It's not just veteran arms Alston will be tasked with maximizing though, in fact the vast majority aren't veteran arms. Jose Berrios looked the part of a good starter last year, but there's real star potential there and he'll be trying to harness that on an every start basis. Eventually pitchers like Felix Jorge, Fernando Romero, Stephen Gonsalves, and Zack Littell will find their way onto the Target Field mound. Keeping command in focus and not allowing the moment to be too big, Alston will be forced to challenge the young arms while also keeping them in check. For Minnesota, a retooling of the starting rotation was needed, and pitchers like Lance Lynn and Jake Odorizzi fall more under the notion of tweaks rather than full-scale hand holding. The bullpen also was bolstered with reinforcements, and guys like Addison Reed and Fernando Rodney should be cut from a similar cloth as their veteran starting counterparts. In relief though, Garvin Alston will oversee a guy in Trevor Hildenberger who had a breakout 2017 and became one of Minnesota's best relievers. Through spring training thus far, Hildenberger has seen results anything but reflective of his 2017 exploits. A reminder that the slate is wiped clean and a 9.4 K/9 along with a 1.3 BB/9 came out of that arm a year ago will go a long ways to determine how the Twins handle late innings. Taylor Rogers will be expected to take a step forward, and eventually Jake Reed, Tyler Kinley, and any number of other arms could be called upon to get meaningful outs. While there's a good argument to be made that most managers misuse or at least under-utilize their bullpens, it will be on Alston and Molitor to find a blueprint that gets the most out of their club. The 46 year old pitching coach will need to dance between relating to players not much his junior, and a manager significantly his senior. Evaluation of a pitching coach is relatively difficult, and even more so in a small sample size situation. We may not know what Alston is capable of or has become for the Twins after 2018, but you can bet than a significant positive impact would go a long ways towards success. Seen as a pitching guru, Falvey tabbed Alston his guy, and giving him a staff that has a little bit of everything should provide plenty of opportunity to grow. Minnesota needs pitching to become a strength, and Alston pioneering that movement would be massive. For more from Off The Baggy click here. Follow @tlschwerz

With the Twins off-season moves seemingly drawing to a close, fans would be hard pressed not to be enthused by the clubs’ upgrades. At the beginning of the 2017 season, fans were frustrated with a lifeless offseason which involved adding Jason Castro, Matt Belisle, and newly reinvented Craig Breslow. Most cautioned that ‘Falvine’ (there’s my garage band name of the future) were assessing the organization and its infrastructure before making hasty free agent additions. This off-season, the front office has been aggressive, acquiring Jacob Pearson and David Banuelos from the Angels and Mariners for international slot money, adding Michael Pineda, Zach Duke, Fernando Rodney, Addison Reed, Annibal Sanchez, and trading for Jake Odorizzi. Falvey and Lavine deserve credit for creatively adding to the Twins 2018 chances whilst maintaining strong organizational depth for 2019 and beyond. I would argue that the Twins punched a little above off-season expectations in their bullpen additions (with the addition of Reed) and a little below their expectations for the rotation given the earnestness of their interest in Yu Darvish. While the Twins have improved their starting five, the lack of a higher quality add like Darvish or Archer (although unsurprising) heightens the pressure on Kyle Gibson to build on his string second half performance in 2017. So who is the real Kyle Gibson? What can Twins fans expect in 2018? One question I pondered before I dug into Gibson’s numbers; Did/do Twins fans have unreasonable expectations for Gibson? There has always been a contention that Gibson has not lived up to the hype. The Twins first round selection (22nd overall) in 2009, Gibson ascended to fairly lofty prospect status, reaching a peak of #34 overall (Baseball America). The Twins have struggled to draft and develop front line starting pitching for a significant period of time, making the pressure on Gibson to be ‘the answer’ immense when he made his big league debut in 2013. It should also be noted that in spite of Gibson falling a little in the draft due to his injury history, the Twins have had other late first round pick pitchers who couldn’t establish themselves in the majors at all (such as Alex Wimmers). With Ervin Santana out and until May and rotation with a top end of 2/3 types (Berrios and Odorizzi), the Twins need Gibson to be at least solid. So who is Kyle Gibson? Is he the 2015 version who threw almost 200 innings and had an xFIP of 3.95? Is the second half of 2017 version who had a K/9 of almost 9.0 and help opposing hitters to a .379 SLG? Or is he the pitcher who struggled significantly throughout the first half of last season, to the tune of a .389 OBP against whilst surrendering 16 HR in 80 innings? Matthew Trueblood wrote an excellent article for Baseball Prospectus when Gibson was picking up steam in the second half of 2017. He isolated four primary factors in Gibson’s breakthrough; a lower release point, moving to the middle of the rubber to combat control problems, using his legs more effectively, and an evolving pitch mix. Gibson’s velocity improved as a result, his average fastball increasing almost 1 mph from 2016. New Twins pitching coach Garvin Alston is one of the most fascinating stories not to be talked about this offseason. Minnesota owe much of their 2017 success to then new hitting coach James Rowson. Throughout the season when the Twins young hitters made breakthroughs, Rowson continued to emphasize one central tenet of his coaching; the swing belongs to the hitter, they must own it and feel empowered to tweak it. When introduced to Twin Cities’ media, Alston emphasized his own central teaching: ‘First, one of the biggest things I teach is commanding the zone with the fastball’. Consider then, Gibson’s fastball command from the first half of 2017 to the second half. Comparing Gibson’s fastball location from the first half of his season to the second, he clusters his strike throwing with greater consistency in the portion of the zone up and away from RHH. Additionally, he more intentionally uses the opposite corner of the zone, down and in from RHH or down and away for LHH. Between April and the end of July 2017, Gibson gave up a .300 BAA with his fastball, a SLG of .640, and .340 ISO. Over the same period of time, he gave up .342 BAA on his sinker. After tweaking his pitch mix, Gibson’s results improved dramatically. Throughout the rest of the season, his gave up a .529 SLG, and .193 ISO on his fastball. It was still being hit, but much less hard. Similarly, he gave up a .267 BAA on his sinker. This makes a ton of sense. Gibson has always been a sinker ball pitcher, known for keeping the ball down in the zone. It doesn’t take a ton of research for good hitter to be able to pick up on his location tendencies when his mix was so predictable. By using more of the zone and varying his fastball and sinkerball usage, Gibson induced more groundballs, increased his strikeout rate, and most important for a pitcher without a real plus pitch, reduced hard contact. Gibson’s fastball command and usage had a significant impact on hitters. Opposing hitters O-Swing % (the amount opposing hitters swing at a pitch outside the strike zone) increased from 18% to over 25%. Additionally, Gibson was able to generate more swings inside the zone with his fastball increasing that number 18% to 61%, a career high. In other words, if your stuff isn’t outstanding, you better to be able to keep hitters off balance by moving it around in the zone, or command the strike zone, as Alston would call it. It will be fascinating to see if Alston can further leverage this improvement Gibson made in the second half of 2017 for a successful 2018. Gibson is likely going to continue to make adjustments to stay ahead of the curve in keeping hitters off-balance. Ultimately, the construction of the Twins’ off-season speaks to Falvine’s understanding of that they have on their roster, and what they don’t have. The Twins now have several intriguing back end bullpen options between Trevor Hildenberger, Zach Duke, Fernando Rodney, and Addison Reed. The pen is much more likely to be able to bail out a bad start than in 2017. If Gibson can continue to tweak his approach and forms and effective partnership with Alston, the Twins may find themselves with a fourth starting pitcher who gives them more consistent innings and can pitch deeper into games. How do you think Kyle Gibson will perform for the Twins in 2018? Do you think he will establish himself as a consistent middle of the rotation starter? Or will he continue to have varied and inconsistent results?

TwinsFest is a great destination for fans to gather, meet the players and maybe score a few autographs, but it’s also the source of a lot of great information. WCCO did an amazing job providing coverage from the event, and made tons of interviews available online. Here’s some of the quotes I found to be most interesting ...I encourage you to check out the full interviews for yourself, there are hours of audio available online. All of the Friday content is available on the Sports to the Max page, Saturday’s interviews are on Steve Thompson and Eric Nelson’s page and the Sunday talks are on Sports Huddle with Sid and Dave. Naturally, there were a lot of common themes that came up, one of which was getting to the playoffs and the team’s goals for next season. Let’s start off with my favorite quote from the entire weekend … Zack Granite on playing the Yankees in the Wild Card game: “It was a really cool moment for me, I had a lot of family there, but I’m tired of them now. I want to kick their ass next year.” Jose Berrios on goals for 2018: “When you taste a game like that – playoffs – you want to be there for the rest of your career. So now, we go to Spring Training with that expectation. We’re going to prepare our bodies and our minds for October.” It was also really interesting to hear some of the pitchers touch on their past struggles, lessons they’ve learned and ways they approach the game Kyle Gibson on his second-half surge: “I really found my fastball. I found some trust in my fastball. I always had trust in the sinker, but I don’t know that I knew exactly what that meant. But then I found some trust in my four seamer as well. I think what that allowed me to do is use four seamers early, just throw the tar out of it all the time, and get ahead of guys with that. Everything played off of that a lot better.” Ryan Pressley on routines: “A lot of big league players will tell you it’s all about setting a routine. I didn’t even know how to set a routine until two years ago and I’ve been up here for a while. It’s finally starting to click and I was finally able to get stuff done. Last year when (Matt) Belisle came in, watching him go about his day was impressive. It was really fun to watch, and that’s why he’s got 12 years in the big leagues. He goes about his business and does it the right way. That’s what I want to learn from these guys (the new free agents) coming in here.” Trevor Hildenberger on adjusting to the majors: “You hear so much about the strike zone and how small it is and how small it can be for rookies. But ( Jason) Castro really made a huge impact stealing strikes for me, framing pitches. He was getting me calls that I thought I had no business getting. So the ability to frame pitches I didn’t realize was such a huge factor until I got to the big leagues.” Trevor May on Tommy John surgery: “(Ryan) Vogelsong, he gave me a really, really detailed rundown of the first couple months … He was like here’s some things you really need to focus on, things that worked for me and are the reason why I’m still going strong.” And May on rejoining the Twins: “If you’re doing your job. and where you need to be, it all shakes out in the end. It doesn't matter how quickly for me it happens, I just want to make sure when I’m here it’s go time and it’s not like ‘you’re rehabbing from Tommy John,’ it’s ’you’re part of the team Tommy John’s behind you.’” J.T. Chargois on his health: “I’m feeling good right now. I think that through spring training last year I developed a little mechanical glitch in my follow through and through a lot of video analysis I’ve broken that done and figured it out. So my arm’s doing well and I’m ready for spring.” Zach Duke on his strengths: “My strength is randomness. I throw from a couple different arm angles, I’ve got about eight different pitches and when I’m on I feel like I can throw any of them at any time” It was also interesting to hear some of the hitters talk about adjustments and their approach at the plate. Byron Buxton on adjustments: “Not really being able to fail back in high school and in little league, it was very tough for me once I got up here. All the negative thoughts start coming, and that was a first for me. That’s what it took for me to realize I’ve got to make adjustments in this game and you’ve got to make some changes. Finally I got strong enough mentally to realize I can handle this and change my swing.” Max Kepler on the mental side of the game: “The mind is powerful, and it can get in the way of baseball, for sure.” Brent Rooker on Brian Dozier: “The whole thing about hitting to me is just trying to make your body work as efficiently as you can to get everything out of your ability and everything out of your strengths. So you look at a guy like Brian who’s maybe not the biggest guy, but who hit 40 something home runs a few years ago, who continually hits 25-plus home runs, he’s got to be doing something right. He’s learned how to use his body and use his swing and his mechanics to get the most out of his athleticism, most out of his strength, most out of his talents, which is something I really respect.” Alex Kirilloff on the type of hitter he is: “I try to be as well-rounded as I can. I’m not a real big mechanical guy. I focus a lot on timing and vision. That’s taken me a long way, I’ve worked on that from a very young age and that’s brought me a lot of success so far.” And, of course, there was some great stuff from the coaching staff. Manager Paul Molitor on dealing with personalities: “We try to make these guys better, but whatever you want to call it — new generations, millennials — you have to try to find what clicks for them and what gets them going. I’ve done more millennial studying than you’d want to know about, to be honest with you, but you try to get in there and certainly the relationships are as important part of today’s game.” Hitting coach James Rowson on the young hitters: “They just need more at bats. The more experience they get, the better they get. So I think last year was a chance to give them a chance to fail, give them a chance to go out there and be themselves and not worry about what they do wrong but try to stay positive with them and let them do what they do right.” And Rowson specifically talking about Buxton: “It was never really about the leg kick in our discussions ... I always say ‘you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe’… If you’re not strong in your lower half, you’re not going to be able to execute that swing consistently. So what we talked about with him was just getting to a point where he was stronger on his legs. He could feel his legs and he could feel like he was grounded when he was going to take a swing. He started to feel that by eliminating the leg kick a little bit at first. It gave him the feeling that he needed … once he got that feeling, I told him ‘go out there and be an athlete and do the best you can. Don’t think about it, just go out there and react.’” Outfield instructor Jeff Pickler on helping players improve: “The neat thing about our outfield group is that it’s not so much what I’m telling them, it’s things they’re coming to us saying they want to do better.” Pitching coach Garvin Alston on how he got into the business: “I wasn’t sure if this was the direction I wanted to go in, or if I wanted to go back into teaching and doing things of that nature. So what ended up happening was a player, Andrew Bailey ... at that time (2008) was struggling through some things and we worked. And we worked hard. And in doing so, I saw him turn a corner and get better. And I said ‘you know what? This is fun, being able to help.’” Third base coach Gene Glynn on Alson: “He’s an up-beat, real positive high-energy guy. Really smart, very intelligent and organized.” Glynn also pointed out that he was Alston's very first professional manager. He as at the helm of the Bend Rockies back in 1992, which also happened to be where Alston made his debut after being drafted in the 10th round earlier that year. There was also some interesting talk of payroll and potential transactions, as you’d expect for this time of year. Brian Dozier, responding to a question from Sid Hartman regarding a potential extension: “I knew you were going to ask me that. I do want to stay here. That stuff takes care of itself. I’m sure we’ll talk in spring training just to see where both sides are at.” Owner Jim Pohlad on the budget: “We set an overall budget, we don’t sit down and just spend all the time just on player payroll … There’s just a number put in there and it’s not like ‘ok this is the number you guys have to spend, go spend it or not.’ We build in I would think a not conservative number for sure, a more aggressive number.” Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press wrote in length about Pohlad and CEO Dave St. Peter's comments regarding Yu Darvish over the weekend. If you went to TwinsFest, please share anything interesting you overheard, or your experiences from the event in the comments. Click here to view the article

There were plenty of better known names on the market. Coaches like Jim Hickey, Chris Bosio, and Mike Maddux were all in the rumor mill but the Twins decided to go in a different direction. Garvin Alston will replace Neil Allen on manager Paul Molitor’s staff. Here’s what you need to know about Alston:Background Alston’s big league pitching career was limited to six innings with the 1996 Colorado Rockies. From 1992 through 2003 he played professional and independent baseball. For the last 13 years he has coached professionally. Within a couple years of retiring, he had joined the Athletics organization as a coach. He spent the next decade as a minor league pitching coach, minor league pitching coordinator, and a minor league rehab coordinator. His time as a major league coach has been spent in the Diamondback and the Athletics organizations. During the 2016 season, he served as the major league bullpen coach in Arizona. Last season, he returned to the A’s organization and served as the major league bullpen coach. Expectations With many other big names on the market, Twins fans are wondering what to expect from a relative unknown. Alston doesn’t have one magical pitching philosophy but he wants every pitcher to identify his strength and execute it. “Not one philosophy,” he said. “It is the ability to adjust to the actual pitcher and knowing what their strengths are.” Pitch development has been a forte for Alston in his previous organizations but there’s a bigger key to his success. “First,” he said, “one of the biggest things I teach is commanding the zone with the fastball.”Since Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have joined the front office, they have preached fastball location and getting ahead of hitters. It sounds like Alston fits right in with the organizations direction. What are your thoughts on the new hire? Should the Twins have gone with a more experienced coach? Leave a COMMENT and start the discussion. Click here to view the article

The Minnesota Twins took the first step to improving their pitching staff on Thursday, as the club announced they’ve hired Garvin Alston as the new pitching coach on the big-league staff. Alston is the 16th pitching coach in Twins history, and fourth since 1985 according to a team release. Alston finished 2017 as the bullpen coach for the Oakland A’s, and began the season as a pitching rehab coordinator for the San Diego Padres. He’s spent 13 years coaching in some capacity in professional baseball with the following stops under his belt: Kane County (Oakland A-ball) pitching coach (2005-06) Stockton (Oakland High-A ball) pitching coach (2007-08) A’s minor-league rehab pitching coordinator (2009-14) A’s minor-league pitching coordinator (2015) Diamondbacks bullpen coach (2016) Alston pitched briefly for the Colorado Rockies in 1996, and was their 10th-round selection in the 1992 MLB draft — one pick behind the Twins’ selection (outfielder Ben Jones). Alston pitched in the Rockies organization from 1992-98 — he did miss the entire 1997 season — and then spent the next two seasons in the Dodgers and Royals organizations before finishing in 2003 with the independent Montreal Royales of the now defunct Canadian Baseball League. Alston was one of just a handful of players with MLB experience in the league, along with Francisco Cabrera, Rich Butler, Pascual Matos, Angelo Encarnacion, Shad Williams, Floyd Youmans, Rafael Medina and Steve Sinclair. In his time coaching, he oversaw the minor-league development of pitchers like future AL Rookie of the Year Andrew Bailey (Stockton, 2007) and other top prospects such as Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill. Alston’s son Garvin Jr. is a pitcher at Arizona State, and lists former Twin Quinton McCracken as a relative. He was also drafted in the 37th round of the 2015 MLB draft by the Chicago White Sox. The younger Alston lists his father as a big reason why he gravitated to the game. “He groomed me to be a baseball player, but he didn’t push me to it,” Junior said. “One day we sat down, and he asked me how serious I was about the game. I said ‘really serious.'” — In addition to the Alston news, Gold Glove finalists were announced by Rawlings Sports on Thursday afternoon, with a couple familiar faces getting the nod — second baseman Brian Dozier and outfielder Byron Buxton. This article appears in full at Zone Coverage here. Please click through to support the content.