Approach Adjustments Making José Miranda a Tough At-Bat During Bounceback Season

[Peter Labuza]

Better swing discipline in the zone has put the Twins' infielder into the everyday lineup. With the minors likely behind him, he's coming into his own.

Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

If you tried to rattle off a list of hot Twins players right now, you’d probably mention José Miranda in the second tier of solid hitters for this team. But what is interesting about Miranda’s renaissance is how little has changed from his disastrous 2023 season, when a bad start sent him back to the minors before a shoulder injury ended his season. In 2024, Miranda still lacks true power in his swing. He draws very few walks. And his strikeout rate has shown only marginal improvement.

Instead, Miranda is simply hitting more in the zone.

When players fix their approach at the plate, it usually has a lot to do with finding their sweet spots. When Carlos Correa struggled at first in 2022, he snapped out of it when he finally stopped chasing difficult pitches outside the zone. Miranda still swings at the same number of pitches outside the zone, though he has improved how often he hits them by about 5%.

Instead, Miranda has found more contact within the zone. In fact, Miranda has an in-zone contact rate of 90.5%, which puts him in the top 50 within the league for players with over 150 plate appearances and is the highest for any Twins player (except Max Kepler, who just caught up).

But the case becomes more complicated when we look at his heat maps. Miranda is focusing entirely on his sweet spots. Rather than simply swing if a ball is in the zone, Miranda now focuses on mostly hitting in the top of the zone:

Because he’s been a foul machine, Miranda is the best Twins hitter with two strikes, hitting .244/.261/.384. The closest regular is Carlos Santana, who is only hitting .214. Miranda has only let seven called third strikes go by.

How does Miranda take advantage of fouls? Let’s take a look at this at-bat in Houston against Ronel Blanco. The result here is a walk, but Miranda fouls off seven pitches to get there.

Blanco starts off with two pitches pretty far outside the zone, so Miranda let both of them sail by. That puts him into swing mode. He then gets a pitch just above the zone and right in his sweet spot, so he smacks it foul.

Blanco puts the next outside the zone, but quite close to Miranda’s sweet spot. He chases and makes contact, making it 2-2. Every pitch here, now, could put him away, so Blanco goes to the slider up in the zone, and Miranda takes a swing at it, throwing it into the stands.  He then tries a fastball in the same position, hoping that the batter won’t catch up. Miranda makes contact anyways.  He then tries the change up down in the zone. This time Miranda tries for his low angle swing but ends up topping the ball into the ground.  Blanco tosses another slider away that Miranda refuses to chase, so he tries another changeup, just a little inside. But Miranda still catches most of it and throws it away foul.

Finally Blanco will throw it away, and Miranda will take his base. Five of the pitches he saw were two-strike offerings in the zone. And Miranda refused to let a single one of them go by.

While Miranda has improved, one wonders if this approach will last. Miranda has the highest “called strike” rate of his career, at 16.4%. And as pitchers adjust to his more controlled approach, they will certainly work on pinpointing those spots he prefers to avoid. It’s also affecting his power. Miranda is generally hitting harder and has a stronger barrel rate, but a significantly lower Hard Hit rate. That could mean that when pitchers find the right spot, they force him into more dribblers, rather than line drives. His swing doesn't seem able to sustain its speed down in the zone, the way it does when he gets the ball up at the belt or above.

More adjustments loom. That's always the case. But for now, Miranda has got his shot. And he certainly got his bat speed up on a pitch down in the zone Thursday afternoon.

What do you think about Miranda’s changed approach at the plate? Or do you think pitchers will take advantage?

 

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[Doctor Gast]

I'm a believer in Miranda, Now that he's good to go, I did not doubt that he'll do what he does best & that's hitting. He has made adjustments & he'll continue to make adjustments as the need arises. Miranda is a great fit as the RH platoon at 1B together with LH Julien & Kiriloff, This platoon is much better than Santana as the primary 1Bman. The few times that (RH) Miranda plays at 1B it's to hit against RHPs because switch-hitting Santana has trouble hitting RHPs. Santana is kind of hot now but earlier this season & later in the season & beyond this platoon will shine. This signing was a waste of money & time from having this platoon cemented into the Twins' future. I don't see Miranda as trade bait.

[Brandon]

2 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

I'm a believer in Miranda, Now that he's good to go, I did not doubt that he'll do what he does best & that's hitting. He has made adjustments & he'll continue to make adjustments as the need arises. Miranda is a great fit as the RH platoon at 1B together with LH Julien & Kiriloff, This platoon is much better than Santana as the primary 1Bman. The few times that (RH) Miranda plays at 1B it's to hit against RHPs because switch-hitting Santana has trouble hitting RHPs. Santana is kind of hot now but earlier this season & later in the season & beyond this platoon will shine. This signing was a waste of money & time from having this platoon cemented into the Twins' future. I don't see Miranda as trade bait.

Santana is on track to have a 2.5 WAR season give or take for 5.625 million.  That seems like a bargain to me.  
 

As far as Miranda is concerned, he definitely has value as a hitter here.  It doesn’t seem like he has a ceiling that’s too high but still solid.  

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, Brandon said:

Santana is on track to have a 2.5 WAR season give or take for 5.625 million.  That seems like a bargain to me...

Santana hasn't produced at that level in 5 years. The chances he can sustain this production is 1%

[bean5302]

5 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

I'm a believer in Miranda, Now that he's good to go, I did not doubt that he'll do what he does best & that's hitting. He has made adjustments & he'll continue to make adjustments as the need arises. Miranda is a great fit as the RH platoon at 1B together with LH Julien & Kiriloff, This platoon is much better than Santana as the primary 1Bman. The few times that (RH) Miranda plays at 1B it's to hit against RHPs because switch-hitting Santana has trouble hitting RHPs. Santana is kind of hot now but earlier this season & later in the season & beyond this platoon will shine. This signing was a waste of money & time from having this platoon cemented into the Twins' future. I don't see Miranda as trade bait.

Miranda is destroying RHP. He is not a platoon candidate.

[Doctor Gast]

4 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Miranda is destroying RHP. He is not a platoon candidate.

OK, I took the middle ground. Miranda can hit RHPs & if we need him, we can have him play 1B, DH, & 3B against them. Why I have him in a platoon at 1B is because we need a place to put Julien & Kiriloff. 1B is their best position & they can hit RHPs better than Miranda. Right now both Kiriloff & Julien are unavailable. So w/o Santana, Miranda would have sole procession of 1B.

[Doctor Gast]

4 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Santana hasn't produced at that level in 5 years. The chances he can sustain this production is 1%

That is one of my points. Another is 1B is a production position, we can get more production from these 3 than Santana alone, 3rd is Miranda, Julien & Kiriloff is our future, why give a great majority of time to someone who will be gone next year, with doubts that he will be producing come postseason? This time of experience should be given to the ones who will benefit the team the most in the long run.

[Trov]

Is it actual adjustments, or is it the fact his shoulder is healthy?  I get it was his back shoulder and not his lead swing shoulder, but there is no way you can tell me that having pain in your shoulder with every swing did not affect it last year.  There was the article the other day about players and playing through injuries and he was one trying to play through a shoulder injury last year and clearly did not go well. 

[Karbo]

11 minutes ago, Trov said:

Is it actual adjustments, or is it the fact his shoulder is healthy?  I get it was his back shoulder and not his lead swing shoulder, but there is no way you can tell me that having pain in your shoulder with every swing did not affect it last year.  There was the article the other day about players and playing through injuries and he was one trying to play through a shoulder injury last year and clearly did not go well. 

Looks like Miranda is who I thought he would be . Last season was the outlier due to injury, but he has hit at every level. Now he is making the adjustments to the higher quality MLB pitchers. He's an important piece of the club moving forward.

[Brandon]

7 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Santana hasn't produced at that level in 5 years. The chances he can sustain this production is 1%

Even at the 1.1 War he has already produced makes his 5.625 million salary a good deal. 

[tony&rodney]

2 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

we need a place to put Julien & Kiriloff. 1B is their best position & they can hit RHPs better than Miranda.

I'm puzzled why you believe that Julien is best used at 2B. Julien was sent down specifically because he had lost control of his at bats. Pitchers were exploiting his weaknesses and Julien saw both his OBP and BA plummet as a result. Meanwhile his defense continued to improve, particularly lateral movement. I understand that the impression (and results) Julien etched in many minds from his opening debut as a second baseman caused many to dismiss him at 2B, but the reality now is far from those memories. Julien is also not a decent fit at first base. 

Kirilloff looked decent when he first arrived but he regressed defensively and is pretty much a player without a home in the field. AK needs to dominate or his at bats and roster spot are at peril 

I will grant anyone that both are trending in the wrong direction and may be used in trades. However, a fully functioning Julien, with power and high on base results combined with a good average which results in a .900 OPS, is the Twins second baseman. If Julien cannot return because he fails to make all of the adjustments needed it is likely his career path is with a different organization.

Currently, Brooks Lee is pushing hard for a MLB uniform and this makes it even more difficult for Julien to reclaim his starting position. Opportunities are tough to get and more difficult to hold in baseball.

Santana and Miranda would have to crater badly before Julien gets a look at first base for the Twins. Kirilloff can get another shot if he mashes enough for the Saints and then finally proves reliable for Minnesota.

[LambchoP]

Everyone keeps talking about getting Vlad Jr to play 1b for us, but Miranda is waaay cheaper and this year is putting up better numbers. I think now that he's healthy and producing, Miranda is our long term first baseman. With Lee playing so well I assume he's going to be pushing for an everyday second base job, which leaves Julien as a platoon hitter or trade candidate.

[Doctor Gast]

4 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

I'm puzzled why you believe that Julien is best used at 2B. Julien was sent down specifically because he had lost control of his at bats. Pitchers were exploiting his weaknesses and Julien saw both his OBP and BA plummet as a result. Meanwhile his defense continued to improve, particularly lateral movement. I understand that the impression (and results) Julien etched in many minds from his opening debut as a second baseman caused many to dismiss him at 2B, but the reality now is far from those memories. Julien is also not a decent fit at first base. 

Kirilloff looked decent when he first arrived but he regressed defensively and is pretty much a player without a home in the field. AK needs to dominate or his at bats and roster spot are at peril 

I will grant anyone that both are trending in the wrong direction and may be used in trades. However, a fully functioning Julien, with power and high on base results combined with a good average which results in a .900 OPS, is the Twins second baseman. If Julien cannot return because he fails to make all of the adjustments needed it is likely his career path is with a different organization.

Currently, Brooks Lee is pushing hard for a MLB uniform and this makes it even more difficult for Julien to reclaim his starting position. Opportunities are tough to get and more difficult to hold in baseball.

Santana and Miranda would have to crater badly before Julien gets a look at first base for the Twins. Kirilloff can get another shot if he mashes enough for the Saints and then finally proves reliable for Minnesota.

Don't believe everything you read. A lot of Julien's defensive stats are smoke & mirrors. The stats that show Julien is better at 2B than he is, also shows Correa & Santana as worse. A fact that you can't argue with is that Julien is the 2nd slowest starter on the roster, only Santana is slower. Do you want your 2nd slowest player to cover up the middle? I don't. 

Arraez had no experience at 1B & no grace period. He was thrown in the fire right away & did fine (1B is Arraez's best position). If Julien doesn't have the glove to play 1B he shouldn't be playing anywhere. Julien's bat should play much better against RHPs than Santana. 1B is a production position, Julien has a much better chance to beat Santana & Miranda's bat at 1B against RHPs than beat Lee, Martin & Castro at 2B. What is confusing to me is that Julien best position is 1B & there is where his future is at. Yet all these years they choose to prop Julien up at 2B & avoid him from playing at 1B.

I'm a big fan of Julien but if they think that Julien can't play 1B, then they should trade him. 

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, Brandon said:

Even at the 1.1 War he has already produced makes his 5.625 million salary a good deal. 

WAR is not a counting stat. It's similar to the concept of wRC+, positional adjustment and OAA multiplied by an innings played factor.

Santana can still finish the year at negative WAR because a bad day today totally erases a good day yesterday as if that good day never happened in the first place. Right now, Santana sure seems locked in, and it's great for the Twins.

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

...Meanwhile his defense continued to improve, particularly lateral movement...

 

17 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

Don't believe everything you read. A lot of Julien's defensive stats are smoke & mirrors. The stats that show Julien is better at 2B than he is, also shows Correa & Santana as worse. A fact that you can't argue with is that Julien is the 2nd slowest starter on the roster, only Santana is slower. Do you want your 2nd slowest player to cover up the middle? I don't...

To clarify a couple things.
OAA metrics are largely physical talent related. How far a player travels in "x" amount of time and how fast a throw gets to the base in "y" amount of time, and it translates the expected outs vs. actual into a value. In a way, they're kind of like hypothetical ceilings on performance. They ignore positioning, and good positioning can make a huge difference in the actual number of outs produced. OAA (and it's components) seem to be the least repeatable/reliable advanced fielding metric, IMHO. While I'm loathe to accept it, the "eye test" is still at least relevant because a lot of defensive value is still based on error rate, and errors are subjective based on the scorer. Julien has not been good at applying tags, for example, but it doesn't get recorded as an error. OAA + UZR/150 + Eye Test makes for a pretty good evaluation. Julien is absolutely better than he was when he came up. A lot better. I've seen him make some very nice pivot throws, etc.

Speed changes over time as Statcast attempts to pick events where it thinks a player needs to go all out running, then averages those events into a number. If there is a small sample size and a fast runner jogs out what they think is a known outcome instead of full sprinting, it can throw the numbers way off. Julien is not the slowest runner on the team. At 26.6 ft/sec, he's a tick below MLB average this year (27.0). The following Twins are slower this year.
Jeffers 26.4
Kepler 26.3
Farmer 26.1
Miranda 26.1
Santana 25.9
Lewis 25.8
Larnach 25.7
Vazquez 24.8

See the bolded names. This is why you can't completely trust sprint speeds. Small sample sizes, and playing through injuries can impact speed quite a bit. Lewis is about a 28 ft/sec runner. Kepler is probably 27 ft/sec these days. Julien was 27 ft/sec last year in a big sample (MLB average).

[mickster]

4 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

I'm puzzled why you believe that Julien is best used at 2B. Julien was sent down specifically because he had lost control of his at bats. Pitchers were exploiting his weaknesses and Julien saw both his OBP and BA plummet as a result. Meanwhile his defense continued to improve, particularly lateral movement. I understand that the impression (and results) Julien etched in many minds from his opening debut as a second baseman caused many to dismiss him at 2B, but the reality now is far from those memories. Julien is also not a decent fit at first base. 

Kirilloff looked decent when he first arrived but he regressed defensively and is pretty much a player without a home in the field. AK needs to dominate or his at bats and roster spot are at peril 

I will grant anyone that both are trending in the wrong direction and may be used in trades. However, a fully functioning Julien, with power and high on base results combined with a good average which results in a .900 OPS, is the Twins second baseman. If Julien cannot return because he fails to make all of the adjustments needed it is likely his career path is with a different organization.

Currently, Brooks Lee is pushing hard for a MLB uniform and this makes it even more difficult for Julien to reclaim his starting position. Opportunities are tough to get and more difficult to hold in baseball.

Santana and Miranda would have to crater badly before Julien gets a look at first base for the Twins. Kirilloff can get another shot if he mashes enough for the Saints and then finally proves reliable for Minnesota.

Any trade the Twins make will most likely have Julien/AK as part of it.   

[tony&rodney]

1 hour ago, Doctor Gast said:

Don't believe everything you read.

My only judgment of Julien as a player is based on my own personal observations. By September of last season I was suggesting that Julien had made major positive gains defensively as a second baseman. The vast bulk of TD disagreed and there were a fair number of thumbs down that followed my comments. The disagreements are fine. 

In the offseason I suggested that the Twins might benefit from making a somewhat risky and potentially damaging decision about where the team was headed and which players they saw as fit to hold and where a trade was possible. The only untouchables (for me) were Jenkins, EmRod, and Festa. Among those who may have been seen as having decent value were Jeffers, Kirilloff, Julien, Lee, Lewis, Wallner, Raya, Varland, and Paddack. Others had suppressed value (Miranda, Kepler, Buxton, Larnach, Martin, SWR, Vazquez) and were unlikely to bring back anything fair. Still others were too important to let go given their value and any possible return that seemed fair (Correa, Duran, Lopez, Ryan, Ober, Castro). 

The Twins sat on their stash and are still trying to figure out who is going to play in October, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The players may be uncertain of their status and futures, which could bring about healthy competition or may cause uncertainty which does not help performance. We shall see.

In any event, if Julien can OPS .850 or better he is the guy to play second base. Then again, .... is Brooks Lee going to OPS .900? We are watching for the outcome and hope it leads to a better team.

[RpR]

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

In any event, if Julien can OPS .850 or better he is the guy to play second base. Then again, .... is Brooks Lee going to OPS .900? We are watching for the outcome and hope it leads to a better team.

Julien is still and Iron Glove and strike out leader.

Put Farmer at second, and quit playing musical chairs.

Neither Miranda or Lewis are good fielders but their bats at this point makes that a silent factor.

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

...In any event, if Julien can OPS .850 or better he is the guy to play second base. Then again, .... is Brooks Lee going to OPS .900? We are watching for the outcome and hope it leads to a better team.

Yeah, I'd hope if Julien was able to OPS .850 over a full season he'd be the starting 2B because he'd be a 6-7 WAR player and MVP candidate. (though I suppose not as valuable under Rocco Baldelli's gotta rest 'em all! pokemon mantra limiting a full time player to like 110 games)

Julien is not going to OPS .850. More like .775 if he's able to make his adjustments, which... who knows if he can? He's as good as Jorge "Rock Hands" Polanco at 2B and OPS'ing .775 makes Julien a potential 3-4 WAR player. That's near All Star caliber performance.

Brooks Lee's scouting profile suggests he's as poor a runner as Julien or worse so if you're looking for elite defense, I'd be a little surprised if Lee has the athleticism. I'd say Lee might have Brian Dozier defensive ceiling of average-ish.

[JD-TWINS]

16 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

That is one of my points. Another is 1B is a production position, we can get more production from these 3 than Santana alone, 3rd is Miranda, Julien & Kiriloff is our future, why give a great majority of time to someone who will be gone next year, with doubts that he will be producing come postseason? This time of experience should be given to the ones who will benefit the team the most in the long run.

The goal is to get production from the players you have available and to try & win as many games as possible. The “I don’t think he’ll keep it up” is moot until he doesn’t keep it up. The guy has most HR’s & most RBI on the Team! Absolutely no reason & no logic I buy into that says he should be sitting.

Julien doesn’t play 1B.

I think Royce Lewis should play LF or 1B so Lee can play 3B & whoever earns 2B (Julien/Castro) can play there………unless the organization considers moving him it’s a senseless thing to discuss all the time. Julien gets zero innings at 1B to date and there’s no discussion of him doing so going forward.