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If you haven’t already read Part 1 of this series, I highly recommend that you go and do so. In that installment, I broke down the strengths and weakness of three Yankee hitters (DJ LeMahieu, Gary Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton) to help devise an effective game plan for the Twins pitchers and fielders to have going into the ALDS. In this version, I will be doing much of the same, except now we will be looking at three new hitters in heart of the Yankees lineup.The hitters that we will be breaking down in this installment are Aaron Judge, Edwin Encarnacion and Gleyber Torres. Just as the with the three previous hitters, each of these three is also right-handed. This sets up well for the Twins pitching staff that is stacked with right-handed pitchers. Let’s start this breakdown by looking at perhaps the best hitter in the Yankees lineup, Aaron Judge. Aaron Judge 2017 was a breakout rookie season for Aaron Judge, who hit what was then a rookie record 52 home runs. In the two seasons since, Judge has failed to reach the 30 home run mark, as a result of missing substantial amounts of time with injury in each season. However, when healthy, Judge is still one of the best power hitters in the game. When facing Aaron Judge, getting ahead in the count is vital. Judge has a patient approach, and when he gets ahead in the count, he doesn’t miss his pitch often. Since 2017, Judge ranks third in major league baseball with a .531 wOBA when ahead in the count. A big reason for this is his proficiency against fastballs, as Judge has a .449 wOBA against fastballs over that span. While Aaron Judge can be deadly when he gets his pitch, he can be susceptible against breaking balls and off-speed pitches. In 2019, Judge has a whiff rate of 52.9 percent against breaking balls, and a staggeringly high whiff rate of 61.9 percent against off-speed pitches. While Judge struggles to make contact with both breaking balls and off-speed pitches, the approach to get him to do so varies drastically. Against breaking balls thrown out of the zone, Judge has a whiff rate of 89.1 percent versus a whiff rate of just 30.4 percent on breaking pitches thrown in the zone. However, when swinging at off-speed pitches out of the zone, Judge has a whiff rate of 75 percent versus a whiff rate of 53.6 percent. As we can see, Judge’s whiff rate varies a lot more drastically on breaking balls than it does on off-speed pitches. Knowing this, the Twins pitchers should focus more on using off-speed pitches, rather than breaking balls when trying to get a pitch over the plate, without having to give in and throw him a fastball. Now that we have a plan of action for the pitchers against Aaron Judge, let’s take a look at how the fielders should line up against him. Download attachment: chart (18).png From the Aaron Judge spray chart pictured above, we can see two things. The first and most obvious is the large percentage of groundballs that he hits to the left-side of the infield. The other obvious thing is that Judge rarely hits fly balls to left field, and when he does, they usually go over the fence. To defend against him, the Twins should have their outfielders shade slightly to right-field so they will have a better chance at catching the larger portion of his fly balls that actually stay in the ballpark. Edwin Encarnacion There have been some concerns on the Yankees front about Edwin Encarnacion’s availability for the ALDS. However, reports have been promising, and it does indeed appear as though Encarnacion will be ready to go. With Encarnacion back in their lineup, it adds yet another power-hitting righty into the middle of the lineup that the Twins need to be ready for. While Encarnacion is a big power-hitting righty, like Aaron Judge, Encarnacion and Judge aren’t as similar as you might think. While Judge’s ability is built around excelling at certain aspects of the game, while having holes in other aspects of the game, Encarnacion is much more balanced in his skills. Despite being such a feared power hitter, Encarnacion has a modest 21.2 percent strikeout rate in 2019. This means, the Twins won’t be able to take advantage of his swing and miss tendencies like they can with other hitters in the Yankees lineup. Another thing Edwin Encarnacion does well, is hit against both right-handed and left-handed pitchers. In 2019, Encarnacion has a .244 average and a 121 wRC+ against righties, while he had a .245 average and a 152 wRC+ against lefties. Encarnacion is about as well-balanced as a player can be against all pitch types. In the chart below, we can see that his wOBAs against fastballs, breaking balls and off-speed pitches are nearly identical in 2019. This gives Twins pitchers flexibility to face Edwin Encarnacion with a much more balanced approach than they can with many of the other hitters in the Yankees lineup. Download attachment: Edwin Encarnacion 1.PNG One thing that does remain the same with Edwin Encarnacion, in comparison to the rest of the Yankees lineup, is his propensity to pull the ball on the ground, as we can see in the spray chart below. Additionally, much like Gary Sanchez, the Twins should be able to take advantage of Encarnacion’s extremely slow running ability by playing their infielders deeper to cut off more of the groundballs Encarnacion hits, while still having time to throw him out at first. Download attachment: chart (19).png Gleyber Torres The final Yankee hitter that we will be previewing in this series is Gleyber Torres. The thing that has become quite apparent with Torres in 2019, has been his inability to hit breaking balls. For Torres, it’s not so much that he swings and misses at a lot of them, but rather his ineptitude of putting breaking balls in play with any authority. The chart below features Gleyber’s barrel percent, and whiff rate against fastballs, breaking balls and off-speed pitches, in 2019. Download attachment: Gleyber Torres 1.PNG One thing that the Twins pitchers shouldn’t have much trouble doing is getting Gleyber Torres to swing at bad pitches out of the zone, as he had a chase rate of 35.1 percent in 2019. For reference, that is almost right in line with C.J. Cron’s 35.6 percent chase rate this season. Now let’s take a look at Gleyber’s spray chart. Download attachment: chart (21).png While Torres also hits a large number of groundballs to the left side of the infield, he does hit just enough balls in the vicinity of where a second basemen traditionally plays, to where I think it makes more sense to play Torres straight up. As we can see from these breakdowns, the Yankees will be sending power-hitting righty after power-hitting righty at the Twins pitchers all series long. This makes it imperative that they keep the ball in the yard at all costs, and not let this lineup slug their way to victory. To do so, they will need to avoid pitching into the Yankee hitters' strengths, and attack their weakness, as I have highlighted here. Click here to view the article

The New York Yankees lineup is set up in a way to strike fear in the hearts of opposing pitchers. Their relentless barrage of slugger after slugger helped them score more runs this season (943) than any team since 2007. They also hit a staggering 306 home runs, a number topped only by this year’s Minnesota Twins. As many Twins fans saw in that Yankees series at Target Field in July, the Yankee lineup can pounce on a pitching staff at any moment, and practically carry their team to victory. This is why it is imperative that the Twins pitchers have a plan in place for attacking each hitter, if they want to “slay the dragon”.In Part 1 of this two-part series, we will be breaking down the strengths and weakness of DJ LeMahieu, Gary Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton, and finding the best approach for the Twins pitchers and fielders against each of them. DJ LeMahieu DJ LeMahieu has quietly been one of the best all-around players in the American League this season. Not only has he filled in well at three different positions in the infield, but his bat came to play, as his 136 wRC+ ranked 21st among all qualified MLB hitters in 2019. What makes LeMahieu so successful is that he doesn’t have many weaknesses. Here are LeMahieu’s wOBA versus each pitch type, and what percentile they rank in Major League Baseball this year. Download attachment: DJ LeMahieu 1.PNG When breaking down LeMahieu’s splits versus lefties and righties, it comes as no surprise that he is a much better hitter versus lefties than he is against righties, given that LeMahieu is a right-handed hitter, as he has a 182 wRC+ against lefties vs a 119 wRC+ against righties. To get a better idea on how to approach LeMahieu, depending on the hand of the pitcher, lets take a look at the same chart as above, but this time broken down by opposing pitcher handedness. Download attachment: DJ LeMahieu 2.PNG From these charts, it is clear that Twins pitchers should avoid throwing off-speed pitches, such as changeups and splitters to LeMahieu altogether. Their main approach should be to pepper LeMahieu with fastballs in and force him to hit his way on base. For right-handed Twins pitchers, they should be able to work in some breaking pitches against LeMahieu as well. Another part of DJ LeMahieu’s game that is quite apparent is his approach at the plate. Illustrated below is DJ LeMahieu’s spray chart from the 2019 season. Download attachment: chart (15).png From this spray chart, the part that is most clear is DJ LeMahieu rarely pulls the ball in the air. The Twins defenders should take advantage of this by having all their outfielders shade pretty significantly towards right field. Additionally, it would make sense to have Jorge Polanco shade a little more towards the third base bag to help cut off the large amount of ground balls LeMahieu hits in the hole between shortstop and third. Gary Sanchez When it comes to facing Gary Sanchez, the key is to avoid letting him make contact. Fortunately for the Twins, Sanchez makes this pretty easy, as his contact rate of 70.2 percent ranks 237th out of the 273 hitters with at least 300 plate appearances in 2019. Sanchez especially struggles to make contact with breaking balls, as his contact rate on them is just 59.2 percent this season. Another way to induce Sanchez to swing and miss is by getting him to chase fastballs up and in on his hands. While avoiding contact is an optimal strategy with any hitter at the plate, Gary Sanchez is one of those hitters where it seems especially important, as he barrels the ball up roughly one out of every five times he puts the ball in play. That’s the fourth highest among any hitter who put at least 200 balls in play this year. A big reason for this is the pull heavy approach that Sanchez has at the plate, as you can see in the spray chart down below. Download attachment: chart (16).png Gary Sanchez’s ground ball distribution is almost exclusively pulls down the third base line. The Twins shouldn’t have much trouble exploiting this with a three-man shift on the left side of the infield. Another thing the Twins should take advantage of is Sanchez’s speed, or lack thereof, as his sprint speed of 25.5 feet per second is down near the bottom of the league. This should allow the Twins infielders to play further back to cover more ground laterally, and still have enough time to make the throw over to first to get Sanchez in time. Giancarlo Stanton (Note: All statistics for Stanton are from 2018, due to limited sample in 2019) When it comes to facing Giancarlo Stanton the approach is simple: feed him breaking ball after breaking ball after breaking ball. Whether it is a righty or a lefty on the mound for the Twins, it doesn’t matter, just don’t throw anything straight to Stanton. In 2018, Stanton whiffed at 45.8 percent breaking balls that he swung at. Since he struggles mightily vs. breaking balls against lefties, it is probably their best option to try to get Stanton out, unless they possess an excellent changeup. To illustrate this point further, here are Stanton’s wOBA breakdowns by pitch type and pitcher handedness in 2018. Download attachment: Gincarlo Stanton 1.PNG Just as was the case with Gary Sanchez, the Twins should be able to employ an extreme pull shift to the left side of the infield when Giancarlo Stanton is up at the plate, as we can see from his spray chart down below. Download attachment: chart (17).png While Stanton isn’t the fastest of runners, at 26.8 feet per second, he still has enough speed where the Twins probably won’t be able to take advantage of it by playing deeper in the hole, like they can for Sanchez. In the outfield, the Twins should pretty much just play straight up, as Stanton's spray is pretty even on balls in the air. As we can see the Yankees order can provide quite the challenge, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to attack them to keep their lineup in check. The key will be for the Twins to take each hitter one at a time and do what they can to get that hitter out. Stay tuned later in the week, as we will be featuring three more juggernauts in the Yankees order in Part 2. Click here to view the article