Pitcher and Hitter Performance in St. Paul

[jorgenswest]

It is easy to get for me to be encouraged by the performance of the Twins minor leaguers in the the July edition of minor league hitter of the month and sometimes less encouraged by the pitcher of the month. I looked for some context to go with that performance particularly with levels close to the major leagues.

The run scoring context in AAA this year really distorts our perception of performance particularly if we are looking at OPS. There are more than 11 runs scored per game in the IL this year. The Saints are scoring over 6 runs a game giving them a rank of third in the league. They are 0.41 runs a game behind Louisville.

Is it a surprise to know that relative to league the Saints pitchers rank better than their hitters? Pitching ranks second in runs per game at 5.07. I don’t think that rank of second fits with our perception of the Saints pitching this year. In this run scoring context it is probably gives even more weight to looking at contact rate and strike outs and walks rather than the triple slash stats that are so distorted. 

Wichita in the Texas League is also in a higher scoring run environment but not quite as high as St. Paul. Those numbers can give a distorted impression of performance also.

The data we have available to look at from AAA and it’s run scoring context really isn’t very helpful in projecting performance in the majors. I would guess that the pitch level data the Twins must see is much more helpful.