Mackey's notebook: Throwing Out Baserunners

Apparently today's post-game turned to the question of throwing out baserunners. I thought Mackey had a pretty good recap at: http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/N...yond_him083012

I'm a little puzzled by why Gardenhire focused on Mauer's arm at the start: ""(Mauer) is not having any arm problems at all." although he did go on to say: " he's kind of sitting there catching it flat-footed. ... That leads to him having to stand straight up and throw the ball, rather than driving through it."

When I first read the statistics, my first thought was about the problems that Mauer has had with his knees and legs not his arm. And while Butera and Doumit are also down from their career averages percentage-wise, neither of them is off nearly as much as Mauer.

To me, the combination of the decline in throwing out batters coupled with his somewhat reduced Slugging Percentage and OPS would indicate that his knees/legs will probably never be quite the same. (Although his power numbers are up from last year).

Arm injury just never occurred to me.

Mauer has had some recurring shoulder issues that have largely been brushed under the rug. I wouldn't be surprised if that's a contributing factor.

That teams haven't stolen more is a reflection on his history...especially with the various starting pitchers.

Been culling through the video of Mauer's throws to second since AP Guy tweeted Gardy's comments this afternoon on Joe being "flat-footed" on his throws. While the "flat-footed" part doesn't seem to stand out in the video, you can definitely see that his footwork is much slower in 2012 than it had been in the past. As Gardy said, it's like he's standing straight up instead of pivoting to get behind the throws. It's fairly obvious and opposing teams must be seeing that as well hence the increase in stolen base attempts. My post tonight/tomorrow AM will cover that topic with some video evidence to back it up.

I don't get to watch a lot of the games. Are most of his throws tailing toward the first base side of the bag still?

I've watched most of the games this year and though Mauer's throws haven't been great, much if it is attributed to other factors as well. I've seen too many at-bats when no one could throw him out, I've also seen more then a few times where something goes wrong at 2B.

Anyone paying attention has seen the accuracy and velocity of Mauer's throws to second decline, not just this year, but gradually over the past couple years. Many throws are off the mark, either through rushing the throw, and/or because the throw sails, often high and right.