The Twins Are a Tired Team, and Tired Teams Chase - Caretaker Exclusive

[Matthew Trueblood]

It's hard to blame Rocco Baldelli for disliking the approach he's seen from his team lately. Unfortunately, it's also hard to tell how they'll get right in the short term.

Image courtesy of © Peter Aiken-Imagn Images

Rocco Baldelli didn't just call his team's performance over the weekend in Kansas City disappointing or weak. He chose the word 'unprofessional'. To a hard-nosed New England baseball man, the cardinal sin in the game is not a failure to be good enough, but a failure to show adequate intensity, purpose, or intelligence. A series in which his team scored only two runs was just the latest example of their growing ineptitude at the plate, and it wasn't the product of fly balls dying on the warning track or close calls going the wrong way.

No, the Twins swung early, and often, and they made lousy contact. Give the stellar Royals pitching staff some credit for that, but be sure not to apportion the responsibility for it all to them. The Twins are on a woeful jag in this regard.

So far this month, as a team, the Twins are chasing just over 36% of pitches outside the strike zone. That's the worst showing for any team in any month all year. Obviously, that's very misleading, because we're only eight days into this month, so outliers are bound to be more common, but the truth of it can't be easily erased. The difference between their in-zone swing rate and their chase rate is also the lowest any team has posted in any month of the season, by a comfortable margin. They're swinging indiscriminately, and it's killing any chances they might otherwise have of producing consistent offense.

On this chart, you can see April and May in a cluster on the left, where the Twins were too passive and struggled out to an uneven start. On the right, clustered just as nicely, are June, July, and August, when the team was healthier and more aggressive and consistently producing superb offensive numbers, even if it came with a little more chase. But right now, as that top data point so clearly tells us, they're a mess.

That's not entirely their fault, of course. They're nearing the end of a long season. Almost 10 years ago, Russell Carleton of Baseball Prospectus did a landmark study about the management of the difficult grind that is an MLB campaign. In it, he found that players show worse plate discipline as they wear down, and that without days off to shield them from the effects of the grind, those effects pile up and materially damage an offense's production.

View full article

[Karbo]

The Twins seem to better with a more patient approach. Lately, it's almost like they're in hurry to get through the game. The coaches are also to blame. They have to pick up on these trends and help the hitters see and recognize them. If they can't take the coaching they need to go!

[Doctor Gast]

Thanks, Matthew, for this very pertinent article & the Carleton research report. With all the injuries we've had, we've had to rely a lot on younger players that haven't built up a lot of endurance yet. Although I think the Twins are aware of the need to give breaks to players yet IMO they could do better, especially down the the stretch. The call-up of Keirsey is well overdue & Lee's return is very welcomed. This frees up Castro & Martin more to get a breather & give breaks to other players. Which IMO should improve overall chase rates & overall production.

[rv78]

Rocco gives out too many "breathers" already. The lack of consistant hitting can be attributed to not getting consistant at bats just as much as being tired. Most every day and night Rocco goes with the platoon righty/lefty matchups. This gives almost everyone in the lineup days off or at the least part of the game if they are used as a pinch hitter or pinch hit for, later in the game. I'm tired of seeing articles that say the players are tired. The way Rocco manages, there shouldn't be anyone that is tired. They are suppose to be professional athletes in excellent shape. If they aren't then crap needs to hit the fan and something needs to change. 

[S Bart]

When I was a young kid, I attended my first Twins game and was impressed by the pitcher, who was simply fantastic! For the first time, I read about his background in the link below which included a Cy Young Award, fight promoter, and carnival barker. ...and a baseball salary that is so low compared to the likes of Correa and Buxton.

#CardCorner: 1970 Topps Dean Chance | Baseball Hall of Fame

[Parfigliano]

I have Dean Chance autograph

[Doctor Wu]

18 hours ago, Karbo said:

The Twins seem to better with a more patient approach. Lately, it's almost like they're in hurry to get through the game. The coaches are also to blame. They have to pick up on these trends and help the hitters see and recognize them. If they can't take the coaching they need to go!

Speaking of coaches, it seem like Watkins doesn't understand the speed, or lack thereof, of various Twins players. This month, in almost every other game, I see him is waving a runner to round third and head home, only to have the Twins runner easily nailed. Something is wrong. 

[purplesoldier4u]

If this team's future is one of Buxton and Correa being part-time players, we can expect more of the same ... especially if the owners keep the budget as low as this season.

[Bodie]

Well, as long as all these lousy swing choices are Bunyanesque in their effort, all will be peachy!!!

 

Twins philosophy- You can't hit it hard without max effort swings.

My philosophy- You can't hit it hard without contact. 

But I'm not a professional...

[Guest]

This year's budget is, I believe, over $130mm, the second-highest ever.  Kepler will roll off in 2025 freeing up some money.  But from an operating profit standpoint 2024 attendance ranks 10/15 and slightly behind 2023 per-game attendance.  Simple economics:  want to pay higher salaries, then team revenue and operating profit need to increase.  

I, for one, long have been in the camp that the season is too long and that MLB suffers from over-saturation.  That has affected injury rates and play quality, and ultimately fan interest.  MLB could cut 15 games off each end of the regular season and put out a September post-season that generates more interest than college football, increase per-game attendance, generate more media interest and increase o/p.  Simple: don't start games when the gametime temp is 45 or less.

Not going to argue that MLB owners aren't greedy, but they have an investment to protect; they aren't a public utility.  And if Twins' fans ultimately want a better product long-term, then it might make sense to get civic leaders and local government to help increase fan interest.  Often it seems like team is trying to push a string alone.  Mid-market teams can do very well over the long-term, just check the Cardinals.

[LambchoP]

Twins began the year as one of the worst hitting, most strikeout prone teams in baseball. They turned it around for awhile, now they look just like they did in April. Lewis, who is supposed to be our last remaining "superstar" looks like he needs a reset in AAA. He's striking out at like what, a 40 percent rate? Lee and Castro have also forgotten how to hit. I'm not sure if Correa and Buxton will be enough to turn things around, but I got to believe they would at least help with morale, which is at rock bottom at the worst possible time:(

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, Minderbinder said:

This year's budget is, I believe, over $130mm, the second-highest ever.  Kepler will roll off in 2025 freeing up some money.  But from an operating profit standpoint 2024 attendance ranks 10/15 and slightly behind 2023 per-game attendance.  Simple economics:  want to pay higher salaries, then team revenue and operating profit need to increase.  

I, for one, long have been in the camp that the season is too long and that MLB suffers from over-saturation.  That has affected injury rates and play quality, and ultimately fan interest.  MLB could cut 15 games off each end of the regular season and put out a September post-season that generates more interest than college football, increase per-game attendance, generate more media interest and increase o/p.  Simple: don't start games when the gametime temp is 45 or less.

Not going to argue that MLB owners aren't greedy, but they have an investment to protect; they aren't a public utility.  And if Twins' fans ultimately want a better product long-term, then it might make sense to get civic leaders and local government to help increase fan interest.  Often it seems like team is trying to push a string alone.  Mid-market teams can do very well over the long-term, just check the Cardinals.

This year's budget was probably sufficient if the front office had been creative, but they weren't. The growth in MLB payrolls has been about 4.5% for the past 20 years, but even at 4.0%, 2024's payroll will have been the lowest in over a decade. In a raw numbers measurement, it'd be the 3rd highest payroll behind the previous two seasons, but there are a lot of issues with measuring payroll that way because of how the ownership has expanded long term contracts. Correa (10yrs $280MM) and Lopez have potentially the largest and longest contracts the Twins have ever offered to a position player or pitcher at this point.

I'm on board the Pohlad's shouldn't be expected to lose money or operate the business as a charity; however, they made money last year ($19MM operating income estimate from Forbes) despite their biggest problem being a lack of attendance. That attendance is the responsibility of Dave St. Peter, and he's missed goals time and again over the past several years. The ownership has not fired St. Peter despite him failing to meet expectations over and over. That's on ownership. The cable TV debacle is on ownership. The trade deadline penny pinching is on ownership. How many 10s of thousands of new residents in the immediate area of North Loop are there with all the new condos and apartments? How is it possible the Twins have been unable to attract any season ticket holders from there? It's mind boggling. Ownership incompetence is at play here.

Fans are not going to bail out owners who do not care about the fans, who do not run their business effectively, and who do not offer a good game day experience.

[joefish]

Personally, I prefer to chase. It's more fun from my perspective. 

[Guest]

16 hours ago, bean5302 said:

This year's budget was probably sufficient if the front office had been creative, but they weren't. The growth in MLB payrolls has been about 4.5% for the past 20 years, but even at 4.0%, 2024's payroll will have been the lowest in over a decade. In a raw numbers measurement, it'd be the 3rd highest payroll behind the previous two seasons, but there are a lot of issues with measuring payroll that way because of how the ownership has expanded long term contracts. Correa (10yrs $280MM) and Lopez have potentially the largest and longest contracts the Twins have ever offered to a position player or pitcher at this point.

I'm on board the Pohlad's shouldn't be expected to lose money or operate the business as a charity; however, they made money last year ($19MM operating income estimate from Forbes) despite their biggest problem being a lack of attendance. That attendance is the responsibility of Dave St. Peter, and he's missed goals time and again over the past several years. The ownership has not fired St. Peter despite him failing to meet expectations over and over. That's on ownership. The cable TV debacle is on ownership. The trade deadline penny pinching is on ownership. How many 10s of thousands of new residents in the immediate area of North Loop are there with all the new condos and apartments? How is it possible the Twins have been unable to attract any season ticket holders from there? It's mind boggling. Ownership incompetence is at play here.

Fans are not going to bail out owners who do not care about the fans, who do not run their business effectively, and who do not offer a good game day experience.

I wonder at last winter's transactions but am at a loss to specify exactly which players the FO should've signed and for what amount of money instead of what they did.  After slow starts, Santana has been a plus and Margot a C+.  Admittedly, the bullpen signings were nearly all whiffs, but who could've foreseen that?

And as much as I wonder about what Dave St. Peter actually does, I have never left a Twins game and said anything like, "wasn't St. Peter terrific tonight?"