The Twins Need to Shake Things Up with Two Obvious Changes

[Craig Arko]

Who should be the (next) hitting coach?

[David Maro]

Wanting to bring players from St. Paul isn't going to change anything. If you don't change manager and coaches you will only mold them to the team's way of doing things. It is all about swing for the fences and who cares about the strike outs. They had 14 strike outs again in a game that Maeda had pitched well and could of won. Swinging at pitches over their heads and out of the zone is minor league. People talk about small ball,getting singles and doubles isn't small ball its baseball. It's time for Polhad to step in and tell FO no more deals without changes. Team is now in second and heading to third next week.

[Brett]

2 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

Who should be the (next) hitting coach?

Uh, who’s the hitting coach in St. Paul? Seems like a good place to start.

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, Brett said:

Uh, who’s the hitting coach in St. Paul? Seems like a good place to start.

The Saints have 13 hitters with at least 100 PAs this year. 6 of them have K% of 29.7 or higher. A 7th at 27.9%. If you're hoping to fix the strikeout problem I think the hitting coach in St Paul is not a good place to start. Assuming we're blaming the hitting coach in Minneapolis for the K problems. 

[USAFChief]

10 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

Who should be the (next) hitting coach?

Someone else.

[jorgenswest]

10 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Sorry to disappoint you but MLB batting average has gone up just slightly from .243 in 2022 to .248 in 2023. That's a far cry from when the league hit .268 way back in 2007 (which includes pitchers hitting). Strikeouts are up 2022->23 from 8.4 per team per game to 8.6. The .706 league OPS from 2022 has increased to .729. Overall offense has barely budged back to 2021 levels.

Without the offseason changes to increase offense I'm pretty sure we would be >9Ks per team per game with league batting average below .240.

It may take time for teams to adjust their approach? Without a change in approach and a trend towards more contact we probably won’t see a big change. Is the slight because all teams are doing slightly better or are a few teams seeing a significant change.

Have the DBacks changed their approach? Their strike out rank is down. Their run scoring is up. Their team batting average is up 30 points. 

[Craig Arko]

10 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

Who should be the (next) hitting coach?

If it were me, I’d pay whatever is necessary to lure Molitor in for the job. He’s probably too smart to take it.

[chpettit19]

7 minutes ago, David Maro said:

Wanting to bring players from St. Paul isn't going to change anything. If you don't change manager and coaches you will only mold them to the team's way of doing things. It is all about swing for the fences and who cares about the strike outs. They had 14 strike outs again in a game that Maeda had pitched well and could of won. Swinging at pitches over their heads and out of the zone is minor league. People talk about small ball,getting singles and doubles isn't small ball its baseball. It's time for Polhad to step in and tell FO no more deals without changes. Team is now in second and heading to third next week.

Do you believe the organization is preaching different things in the minors than the majors? Especially at AAA? They're already being molded to the team's way of doing things. The Saints strike out a ton. Half their roster strikes out at basically 30% or higher clips. They just happen to bring more power with the K's down there. I agree that there's little chance the coaching staff drastically changes their approach this year, but changing coaching staffs midway through the season isn't going to fix the overall problem either. Who are you hiring midseason that can come in and drastically change things?

[jorgenswest]

8 minutes ago, Brett said:

Uh, who’s the hitting coach in St. Paul? Seems like a good place to start.

Maybe. There are bunch of players with a high strikeout/power approach. Does that work better in St. Paul. Isn’t that profile similar to the approach on the Twins?

[DJL44]

The Twins are not a good offensive team but they are far from the worst. There are 9 teams with fewer runs per game than the Twins (including all of the other teams in their division). The only thing keeping them from dropping even lower in runs per game is the fact that they can put the ball over the fence. It would be a lot worse if they were striking out this much but only hitting singles.

[chpettit19]

1 minute ago, jorgenswest said:

It may take time for teams to adjust their approach? Without a change in approach and a trend towards more contact we probably won’t see a big change. Is the slight because all teams are doing slightly better or are a few teams seeing a significant change.

Have the DBacks changed their approach? Their strike out rank is down. Their run scoring is up. Their team batting average is up 30 points. 

They've improved their talent. They added an MVP candidate to their lineup, and gotten Marte back. Adding 2 studs to your lineup tends to lead to improvement in run scoring.

[DJL44]

3 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

It may take time for teams to adjust their approach? Without a change in approach and a trend towards more contact we probably won’t see a big change. Is the slight because all teams are doing slightly better or are a few teams seeing a significant change.

Have the DBacks changed their approach? Their strike out rank is down. Their run scoring is up. Their team batting average is up 30 points. 

I don't know how you "change your approach" to the fact that pitch velocity is up to it's highest peak ever. There is a never-ending supply of relievers throwing in the high 90s with a slider that spins like crazy.

[DJL44]

3 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

There are bunch of players with a high strikeout/power approach. Does that work better in St. Paul.

It works a LOT better in St. Paul. The pitching there is notably worse than in MLB; the pitchers make a lot more mistakes that get hammered.

[Nashvilletwin]

1 hour ago, roger said:

Interesting comment, PDX.  I have an old college roommate who was at Harvard B-School when the guy from Enron, I forget his name, who went to jail was in his class.  He always said that there is always a handful of students at B-School who are known to be so much smarter than everyone else.  In his class, that group had the belief that this Enron guy was so much smarter than they were. 

I got a feeling if this Enron guy was running the Twins they would be winning a lot more games than they are.  I gotta believe he is out of jail by now, isn't he?  Does anyone know?

I sold a business to Enron years ago.  Of the three guys on their side of the deal, two went to jail and one, sadly, shot himself. Whole thing was very, very sad.  

[Surelock]

I suggest the Twins put CC, BB, & MK on the 10 day IL. and would call up Wallner, Miranda, & Williams (trade Gallo or Taylor for whatever you can get).  While these players & Polo are on IL they meet with Mauer & Morneau daily to discuss hitting and meet with TK & RG as to what they would do to get this team out of this funk.

Then Rocco needs to set his lineup (batting order & field positions) and quit changing them daily like his underwear.  Let these players  play.  Mistakes can be learning tools.  Rocco needs to remember that these are team players, not chess moves.  Refer to what Atlanta has done.

Joe Pohlad should be talking to the FO & Rocco concerning the drop in winning percentage (2019 - 62% to 2021 -45% to 2022 - 48%).  This is clearly on them, not just the players.

 

 

 

 

fo

 

[Blyleven2011]

They twins need changes  , we all know that ...

Please let me know when they have s we can whoop it up a bit  , it's getting  pretty boring everyday that us fans realize this and the FO doesn't respond  ... 

I tired of pointing the finger at players when FO  won't do anything  , the FO evidently feels this is the twins and we the fans are supposed to like it anyway they have constructed it  ...

It's difficult to find a fan favorite  in the lineup  , fan favorite  to me right now are Ryan  , gray , Ober and Lopez  and it's going to waste ....

[Schmoeman5]

34 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

While I don't disagree that it's probably time for Popkins to go, that bolded sentence is wrong. Gallo, Farmer, and MAT are hitting at basically their career norms/expectations with a slight dip from last year for Farmer and MAT, but within acceptable variance range. Vazquez has been much worse. Solano has been better than last year, and at about his norm since 2019. Castro is having the best year of his career, outside of 2020.

If they're doing so well. Or close to norm. Then why aren't they winning? 0-23  risp vs Atlanta.  Your rose colored glasses are fogged up and the metrics are too. Under .500. Never been more than 6 games over all year. Correa bad. Gallo bad. Buxton bad Kepler bad. While Castro and Solano Farmer and Taylor have been ok at best. These are the guys that you want to contribute, and not to carry the load. 

[DJL44]

2 minutes ago, Surelock said:

While these players & Polo are on IL they meet with Mauer & Morneau daily to discuss hitting and meet with TK & RG as to what they would do to get this team out of this funk.

Hire Gary is your solution?

[Mark G]

2 hours ago, ValleySpringsFan said:

Royce Lewis commented recently about not waiting for pitchers to make a mistake, and being a little more aggressive instead. Very roundabout criticism of the hitting coach. I then wondered (and it's not practical, I know), what would happen if the Twins went without a hitting coach for a couple weeks? They're already on track to set a new strikeout record. What could go worse?

"what would happen if the Twins went without a hitting coach for a couple weeks?"

Crap, I thought we already were.  😵

With all the talk from Rocco about letting the players choose their own routines when it comes to things like batting practice, pre game routines, etc., I thought the inmates.....er.......the players were already running the asylum......er.......the dugout.  Crap, they even run their own meetings.  Who needs the coaches?  😏

You tell 'em, Royce!!

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

If they're doing so well. Or close to norm. Then why aren't they winning? 0-23  risp vs Atlanta.  Your rose colored glasses are fogged up and the metrics are too. Under .500. Never been more than 6 games over all year. Correa bad. Gallo bad. Buxton bad Kepler bad. While Castro and Solano Farmer and Taylor have been ok at best. These are the guys that you want to contribute, and not to carry the load. 

Because their norm isn't good enough. You're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I don't have rose colored glasses. I've been saying since the start of the year that there wasn't enough talent on the offense. They're lacking true impact hitters. But the post I replied to suggested that every free agent signing was performing worse than they had in previous years. That isn't true. They aren't. They're performing almost exactly how they always have. There's a difference between not being good enough (what I'm arguing is the case) and performing worse than they had previously (what the other post claimed).

[Jocko87]

2 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

If it were me, I’d pay whatever is necessary to lure Molitor in for the job. He’s probably too smart to take it.

There are ways to tacitly admit Popkins isn't getting it done without throwing him overboard or making a big scene.  It's also dumb to fire someone who is 33 and had enough promise to get the job in the first place at such a young age.  Honestly it should be expected that he has some adjustments to make as he figures out what the heck hes doing in this job.

This is where Molly comes in.  Throw him a million bucks for the rest of the year as a special assistant/bench coach and assign him to Popkins.  Popkins remains hitting coach but Molly coaches Popkins (and a sounding board for Rocco).  Molly gets a nice paycheck and back around the game but not full time.  He might like it, and the wall was broken in spring training. 

It feels like Popkins is the darling because of his technical hitting knowledge but probably lacks the art and feel.  Engineer vs artist mindset, Molly can fill that in without butting up against Rocco.

It also fills a gap I believe they have had in the coaching staff since Derek Shelton left.  Who's representing the old school in these meetings?  There has to be a voice to simplify things when the data boys get out over their skis.  To much data on the brain could really screw up a hitters approach.

[Blyleven2011]

22 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Someone else.

Remember we have 1 hitting coach and 2 assisted hitting coaches ...

Clean house on all of them ..

[RJA]

Let's not rearrange the furniture on the Titanic.  First, replace Baldelli and the hitting coach.  Maybe hire people who have a few grey hairs and some real experience, much like what the Braves have done.  Find people with experience, saavy, AND an appreciation for analytics.  This group of players needs a firmer hand and someone who holds them accountable.  Second, replace Kepler and Gallo in the lineup with Wallner and Larnach.  Will they be better, who knows?  But, they are young and have some potential to grow.  Kepler and Gallo have learning curves that are horizontal.  Finally, at the end of the season, replace the FO with people who appreciate analytics AND experience.  The difference between how smart these guys think they are and how smart they really are is breathtaking.

[Blyleven2011]

7 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

There are ways to tacitly admit Popkins isn't getting it done without throwing him overboard or making a big scene.  It's also dumb to fire someone who is 33 and had enough promise to get the job in the first place at such a young age.  Honestly it should be expected that he has some adjustments to make as he figures out what the heck hes doing in this job.

This is where Molly comes in.  Throw him a million bucks for the rest of the year as a special assistant/bench coach and assign him to Popkins.  Popkins remains hitting coach but Molly coaches Popkins (and a sounding board for Rocco).  Molly gets a nice paycheck and back around the game but not full time.  He might like it, and the wall was broken in spring training. 

It feels like Popkins is the darling because of his technical hitting knowledge but probably lacks the art and feel.  Engineer vs artist mindset, Molly can fill that in without butting up against Rocco.

It also fills a gap I believe they have had in the coaching staff since Derek Shelton left.  Who's representing the old school in these meetings?  There has to be a voice to simplify things when the data boys get out over their skis.  To much data on the brain could really screw up a hitters approach.

I could live with that  , if popkins is uncoachable  then Molly could voice that at the end of the season ... sounds good to me ...

 

Another shake up that might wake up some if these player's  is to look at a AA player leap frogging the AAA player's  ,  anything to bring a spice of life to the team , everyone's on notice that there job as a major leaguer is in jeopardy  , might just spark something in them to play harder  ...

There just is no love in mudville  ...

[ashbury]

Firing Popkins won't accomplish anything unless it marks an organizational change in how hitting is approached throughout the system.  Waiting for mistakes from the pitcher, if that sloganized summary suffices to explain the philosophy, is of course where a lot of every team's offense comes from, but taken to extremes it will produce hitters who look great in the minors but then fizzle when facing the elite arms who reach the majors and stay there. 

[HokieRif]

Quote

In his scathing story on the Twins' offense on June 21st,

Nothing scathing about that article.  That's just truth.  The great thing about baseball is we have stats out the you-know-what, and right now all of the offensive stats are god awful, with the common denominator being Popkins.  He's in over his head, the tactics aren't working, and he's personally accountable for wrecking the trade value of every single hitter acquired this offseason and several team veterans that are now having career-worst seasons.

.... and then a thought entered my head... maybe Falvey is tanking this on purpose... and he's the modern day version of this:

[weitz41]

I know this guy that just might be able to fix things...

[In My La Z boy]

1 hour ago, Craig Arko said:

Who should be the (next) hitting coach?

Nelson Cruz

[Woof Bronzer]

We're all upset but if Falvine would rather lose several games over the past 2 years with Pagan and Kepler than cut bait and admit they were wrong, there's a far, far, far better chance they'd hire either of those 2 as hitting coach than bring back Paul Molitor.  

[Dr Katz]

Why not at least try a different hitting approach, it cant get much worse than all the strikeouts now.