This Ain't Your Dad's Starting Rotation

[Matt Braun]

Baseball has been changing ever since its creation. Not only have the rules changed, the strategy employed by teams has evolved as well. The sport has seen many different philosophies come and go over the years as players, managers, and executives continue to search for the next big thing. The modern game is squarely focused on strikeouts and homers and the Twins look to be among the teams at the forefront of this doctrine.The offseason success for the Twins rested on how they would mold the starting rotation into a group capable of carrying the squad. The offense would be good; that much was apparent even before the Josh Donaldson signing. But without a great starting rotation, the outcome of the season would likely be the same as 2019, and no one wanted that.

 

Enter Kenta Maeda. After signing back Michael Pineda and Jake Odorizzi along with bringing in newcomers in Rich Hill and Homer Bailey, the Twins have reworked the starting rotation to their liking. Now it looks to be a dynamic group of hurlers who all provide quality outs in different ways. Almost every pitcher now has been acquired from outside the organization as José Berríos remains the sole homegrown starter. He also is the only starter who pitched for the Twins under the previous regime.

 

This rotation is also incredibly modern; maybe more so than any other Twins rotation in recent memory.

 

Since the front office headed by Derek Falvey and Thad Levine took over, one of the points of emphasis has been on acquiring pitchers who possess strikeout capability. Changing the entire philosophical landscape of a franchise isn’t an overnight job so this effort took time. Today it appears that the fulfilling of this undertaking has reached an upper echelon.

 

One of the stats I like to look at for pitchers is swinging strike %. It shows how often a pitcher was able to coax a hitter into swinging and missing at one of his pitches. In short, it stands for how nasty a pitcher may be. The Twins starting rotation in 2019 had a swinging strike % that was higher than league average (11.6% to 10.7%) which is likely the first time that has ever been true. Unsatisfied with this, the Twins sought to improve their whiffing (in a good way) by letting Martín Pérez walk and pivoting toward starters who possess that swing-and-miss ability.

 

Perhaps you remain skeptical. Getting hitters to whiff at any point in the count is nice but getting outs is still the point of the game for pitchers. That’s fair, so allow me to go to something that might be a bit more pleasing to you. Let’s look at K% which is the rate at which a pitcher struck out hitters over a specific time period (22 strikeouts over 100 plate appearances would yield a 22% K rate for example).

The average MLB starter struck out 22.3% of batters in 2019. Here is each probable Twins starter and his K% in 2019:

 

Berríos: 23.2%

Odorizzi: 27.1%

Pineda: 23.3%

Maeda: 27.1%

Hill: 29.8%

Bailey: 21.4%

 

That’s right, each likely major starting pitcher for the Twins in 2020 had an above average strikeout rate in 2019 with the exception of Homer Bailey. After suffering for years under the tyranny of “pitching to contact”, this is refreshing. Rick Anderson must be rolling in his grave after seeing these numbers*.

 

*I’m getting word that he is actually in Detroit but that may as well be a death sentence so I’ll let this be.

 

This new Twins starting rotation will be better suited for the modern game than probably any other Twins starting rotation in memory. They will be hunting for strikeouts and they all possess the ability to get those strikeouts when needed. Gone are the days of hoping that the batter hits a tapper to Nick Punto for an out. Now they’ll be trying to make the hitter look foolish enough to be placed on Sportscenter’s “Not Top 10”.

 

And that should have you excited to watch this Twins starting rotation in action.

 

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[Cooper Carlson]

Hi Matt

[Matt Braun]

 

Hi Matt

Who are you

[GetToKnowEm]

‘Pitch to contact’ was my least favorite part of the good Twins teams of the 2000s. I will love the strikeouts from our impact pitching this year and beyond.

[oregontwin]

The worry is that strikeouts mean more pitches thrown, and more pitches thrown means more wear and tear, and more wear and tear means shorter careers and more searching for replacements. 

Maybe less of a problem in the era of free agency. Sigh

[puckstopper1]

 

The worry is that strikeouts mean more pitches thrown, and more pitches thrown means more wear and tear, and more wear and tear means shorter careers and more searching for replacements. 

Maybe less of a problem in the era of free agency. Sigh

 

Agreed.  Certainly strikeout are great but there is nothing wrong with a 1-2-3 inning with no strikeouts.

 

WHIP is a metric I like to look at.  If your WHIP in in the low "1's" or lower, you are likely to be a very successful MLB pitcher.

[Brandon]

I like the Dominance ratio/ facter. Not sure of the formula but that seems a good measure for figuring out our playoff rotation.

[mikelink45]

Wow I thought I would be the first to say K's are overrated, but already two posts have beaten my old guy take.  I do like K's but I look at a guy like Nolan Ryan - he was so fun and has the Strikeout record that will stand for my lifetime, but he also has the walk record and that will also stand.  He has records for low hit games and he also is extremely close to 300 losses - which would be a very exclusive club. Cy Young and Pud Galvin are the only two to cross that line and Nolan is third at 292.  Young had a winning pct of 619, and 200 more wins than Nolan. After 22 years and 906 games Young had a whip of 1.13.  Ryan had a winning pct of 526 and a whip of 1.247 after 27 years and 807 games.  Like Puckstopper I like Whip as a measurement more than K's.  I also like innings per start and today's pitchers are not going to match Ryan's 222 complete games.  Oh, I forgot to give you the mantra I started by old blogs with - Wins do Matter - especially when you look at the older pitchers or a Verlander today that want the ball for the entire ball game, they take charge of their own games and earn their wins

 

I still like DPs and fielding so a ground ball pitcher is still of value to me.    

[USNMCPO]

 

Wow I thought I would be the first to say K's are overrated, but already two posts have beaten my old guy take.  I do like K's but I look at a guy like Nolan Ryan - he was so fun and has the Strikeout record that will stand for my lifetime, but he also has the walk record and that will also stand.  He has records for low hit games and he also is extremely close to 300 losses - which would be a very exclusive club. Cy Young and Pud Galvin are the only two to cross that line and Nolan is third at 292.  Young had a winning pct of 619, and 200 more wins than Nolan. After 22 years and 906 games Young had a whip of 1.13.  Ryan had a winning pct of 526 and a whip of 1.247 after 27 years and 807 games.  Like Puckstopper I like Whip as a measurement more than K's.  I also like innings per start and today's pitchers are not going to match Ryan's 222 complete games.  Oh, I forgot to give you the mantra I started by old blogs with - Wins do Matter - especially when you look at the older pitchers or a Verlander today that want the ball for the entire ball game, they take charge of their own games and earn their wins

 

I still like DPs and fielding so a ground ball pitcher is still of value to me.    

Ground balls may be an issue for the Twins infield.

[RaoulDuke]

Maeda is death vs righties which they will face a lot of in the central and the playoffs.  Berrios/ Odo/ Maeda is a decent top 3, no ace but they all could be number 2s and are capable of shutting a good lineup down.

 

Berrios is the only one that really has a chance to go deep into a game, but they have solidified the pen to help with the 5 and 6 inning starts.

[DocBauer]

Really wish we could combine this thread with the one I wrote a couple days ago. I concentrated on WAR of the past 4 rotation staffs and where they ranked in MLB and the AL each year.

 

Really like the look at K%.

 

Am also wondering now if we should also look closer at WHIP.

[Vanimal46]

Probably should wait until the Maeda deal is finalized. Otherwise we're back to Thorpe/Smeltzer/Dobnak in the rotation again until Pineda/Hill come back. 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Major League Baseball has set new records for most strikeouts each of the last 12 years . This has a lot to do with why the Twins pitchers are striking more batters out now. Most teams' pitchers are striking out more batters year after year. . The game has changed dramatically. I realize the point of the article is that the Twins are at the forefront of this change. In order to prove this point, how do the Twins' pitchers rank with the rest of the teams in each of the last 15 years as far as total number of strikeouts by Twins' pitchers per season? Has the Twins' SO ranking increased steadily?

[highlander]

I still like my Ol' Fart Eye Test