Front Office Moves Are Hampering Rocco Baldelli's Preferred Strategy. Good?

[Mike Sixel]

People are really underestimating the impact of his work not during games, imo. I'm not a fan of the pinch hitting, but that's a tiny party of his job. 

[NotAboutWinning]

6 minutes ago, D.C Twins said:

I've been shocked for 2 years running that Rocco still has a job....

Thought experiment: Do you think Rocco will ever manage for another team again?  

Hard no for me... so why do the Twins cling to a negative WAR manager like he is a prize. 

Because he has a year left on his contract. The Pohlads NEVER let someone go that they are still paying be it player or manager.

[Mark G]

10 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

You think a veteran can't hit the same if he bats fifth or sixth in the order? Based on what?

There are theories that where you hit in the line up are based on your strengths and the strengths of the players around you.  I might hit you 2nd in the lineup because I have an Aaron Judge hitting 3rd and they are more afraid of him than they are of you, and you will get better pitches to hit with him "protecting" you, as they say.  Or I might bat you 4th because you have more than just power, you consistently drive in runs.  Or leadoff, because you have a good OBP and some speed to boot.  Or sometimes they take a pretty good hitter and put him 9th to protect the lead off hitter, etc.  Regular lineups are designed to get the most out of the line up as a whole, not just match ups against an individual pitcher, especially in an era where the starter doesn't go much more than 4 2/3ds - at most 6 innings.  

But again, just a theory, although a time tested one.  

[Mark G]

4 minutes ago, NotAboutWinning said:

Because he has a year left on his contract. The Pohlads NEVER let someone go that they are still paying be it player or manager.

Oh, contraire, my well meaning friend.  They fired that last one (Molitor) with 2 years left on his contract.  And what made it funny, was they wouldn't let the new FO fire him with one year left because they wanted to honor the contract.  Then two years later they don't honor the extension they just gave him.  Hmm, go figure.  

[Doc Lenz]

40 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

You think a veteran can't hit the same if he bats fifth or sixth in the order? Based on what?

That is not the type of batting order I’m talking about. As I mentioned most managers are consistent day to day. His lineups vary every day.

[Parfigliano]

47 minutes ago, Doc Lenz said:

I would add that almost if not all Managers have a regular batting order. Helps guys get comfortable. Not Rocco…different almost every day.

Keep em guessing is a big part of Rocco's toolkit.  It's a bad tool.

[Mike Sixel]

1 minute ago, Doc Lenz said:

That is not the type of batting order I’m talking about. As I mentioned most managers are consistent day to day. His lineups vary every day.

I'm not sure what you're talking about then. 

[Doc Lenz]

1 minute ago, Mike Sixel said:

I'm not sure what you're talking about then. 

A small change of one spot in the order is not an issue. Agree with you on that. It’s the constant shifting day to day. No regular lead off, no regular clean up hitter etc.

[rdehring]

You know I always appreciate your writing, Nick.  Today I loved it.  Thanks.

My only comment after reading your article and the comments is that I knew the Twins pinch hitting last year was bad.  But I didn't realize how awful it really was until I saw your .186/.268/,273.  That's ugly, really ugly.

[HerbieFan]

"One could argue this is a good thing, and many fans probably will view it as such. I myself would love to see key hitters like Larnach and Wallner get more chances to survive a tough sixth-inning AB so they can remain in the lineup when a righty reliever swings around three innings later."

This was my stance all of last year.  I think we are 100% in agreement.  Thanks for the work Nick.

[ashbury]

This is going to be unpopular.  But basic stats show that the platooning worked.  The key players failed.

b-r.com provides league splits, on which you can drill down to an individual team's splits.  For L/R pitchers and L/R batters there are 4 combinations, and I clicked on each then sorted by Plate Appearances and by OPS.  Here are the Twins' rankings against the rest of the majors:

RPvRB: 2102 PA (24th), OPS .733 (5th)
RPvLB: 2394 PA ( 7th), OPS .716 (17th)
LPvRB: 1433 PA ( 4th), OPS .746 (9th)
LPvLB:  194 PA (30th), OPS .630 (20th)
totals 6123 PA ( 9th), OPS .726 (11th)

Their platooning had them near the bottom of the majors in opportunities with unfavorable matchups, and near the top in the favorable ones.  (These numbers include switch-hitters batting the way they prefer against a given pitcher.)

The lefty hitters were putrid when they faced lefties, but they had the fewest opportunities of any team so it wasn't as much of a burden.  Among righty batters against righties, Buxton and Correa are pretty good hitters. so they weren't part of any platooning which arguably held the PA higher, while Miranda did well too, and the OPS is overall really quite good.

It's the FAVORABLE matchup for the left-handed batters that held the team down.  It was the most frequent matchup and they didn't do much clobberin'.  Sorting by PA, Willi Castro did okay (.733 OPS) for a guy who is here for his versatility on the field and who by rights shouldn't be leading the team in plate appearances period.  Next was Carlos Santana and his OPS was .676 - that's just unplayable at a bat-first position, but they played him anyway (in fairness he was signed as a Plan B).  Larnach was good (.784) but Kepler was frustrating (.672) and again at a bat-first position was objectively unplayable.  Next is Julien, at an even more unplayable .620 and they did finally take steps with him.  Wallner was the only guy who clobbered, .972, in limited playing time at the major league level.  Kiriloff was at .663 and we know he wasn't right physically. Finally is Brooks Lee with .580 in 133 chances from the favorable matchup; I'm all for starting him at St Paul this season and have him work his way back up.

That's a bunch of guys, too many guys, underperforming when put into favorable matchups.  You can't fix that by demoting or cutting them all, though three of the prime offenders are no longer with the team.  It's the number one thing that the new batting coach needs to figure out, among the holdover players.

This is a strategic look.  Getting down to specific tactics such as pinch-hitting isn't covered by this analysis.  And it ignores the perhaps bigger-picture aim of letting left-handed batters get more experience against LHP and (perhaps) improve with time.  But management achieved what they set out to do in-season, and we might be singing a different tune if the lefty batters didn't let them down big time.

[Doctor Gast]

1 hour ago, silverslugger said:

Well, we are talking about Rocco's ability to in-game manage, or lack thereof.  Why does this seem so obvious to all of us and so, not obvious, to the front office?  I guess we should just stick to the subject, but don't even get me started on the lack of fundamentals this team has shown since Rocco's arrival.

Falvey didn't hire Molitor, but Falvey probably was the reason why he was fired & Rocco was hired.

[Fire Dan Gladden]

6 minutes ago, ashbury said:

This is going to be unpopular.  But basic stats show that the platooning worked.  The key players failed.

b-r.com provides league splits, on which you can drill down to an individual team's splits.  For L/R pitchers and L/R batters there are 4 combinations, and I clicked on each then sorted by Plate Appearances and by OPS, for the Twins.  Here are their rankings against the rest of the majors:

RPvRB: 2102 PA (24th), OPS .733 (5th)
RPvLB: 2394 PA ( 7th), OPS .716 (17th)
LPvRB: 1433 PA ( 4th), OPS .746 (9th)
LPvLB:  194 PA (30th), OPS .630 (20th)
totals 6123 PA ( 9th), OPS .726 (11th)

Their platooning had them near the bottom of the majors in unfavorable matchups, and near the top in the favorable ones.  (These numbers include switch-hitters batting the way they do against a given pitcher.)

The lefty hitters were putrid when they faced lefties, but they had the fewest opportunities of any team so it wasn't much of a burden.  Among righty batters against righties, Buxton and Correa are pretty good hitters. so they weren't part of any platooning and the OPS is overall really quite good.

It's the FAVORABLE matchup for the left-handed batters that held the team down.  It was the most frequent matchup and they didn't do much clobberin'.  Sorting by PA, Willi Castro did okay (.733 OPS), but next was Carlos Santana and his OPS was .676 - that's just unplayable at a bat-first position, but they played him anyway.  Larnach was good (.784) but Kepler was frustrating (.672) and like Santana was unplayable.  Next is Julien, at an even more unplayable .620 and they did finally take steps with him.  Wallner was the only guy who clobbered, .972, in limited playing time at the major league level.  Kiriloff was at .663 and we know he wasn't right physically. Finally is Brooks Lee with .580 from the favorable matchup; I'm all for starting him at St Paul this season and work his way back up.

That's a bunch of guys, too many guys, underperforming when put into favorable matchups.  It's the number one thing that the new batting coach needs to figure out.

This is a strategic look.  Getting down to specific tactics such as pinch-hitting isn't covered by this analysis.  But in the big picture, management achieved what they set out to do, and the lefty batters let them down.

Stop bringing facts to an emotional argument...

Take out the horrible PH stats and those numbers would go up (but yes, PH is part of the story).  Players gotta perform when given the opportunity.

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

I am sure I will get hammered for this, but I have a few questions:

Why is everyone so sure that the rotational philosophy is 100% Baldelli, or that it is his preferred method?  The Twins have been hammered by injuries the past few years to go with some pretty poor performances from players expected to more strongly contribute... sometimes you need to play the hand you are dealt...

Looking at PA/G vs. RHP and LHP illustrates Baldelli's approach. We've all seen how quickly Baldelli pulls pitchers and batters for platoon matchups. It's not about how the game starts in a lot of cases. It has seemingly put the Twins at a significant disadvantage later in games.

i.e. Wallner starts the game against a RHP. In inning 6, the opposing team goes to a LHP out of the bullpen. Baldelli pulls Wallner in favor of Margot. Wallner gets 2 plate appearances, Margot gets 3 plate appearances (1 against a LHP, 2 against RHP)

[ashbury]

19 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Take out the horrible PH stats and those numbers would go up (but yes, PH is part of the story).

Right, it's cherry picking to make excuses for Margot, the most disappointing pickup I can remember in many years.

[chpettit19]

19 minutes ago, ashbury said:

This is going to be unpopular.  But basic stats show that the platooning worked.  The key players failed.

b-r.com provides league splits, on which you can drill down to an individual team's splits.  For L/R pitchers and L/R batters there are 4 combinations, and I clicked on each then sorted by Plate Appearances and by OPS, for the Twins.  Here are their rankings against the rest of the majors:

RPvRB: 2102 PA (24th), OPS .733 (5th)
RPvLB: 2394 PA ( 7th), OPS .716 (17th)
LPvRB: 1433 PA ( 4th), OPS .746 (9th)
LPvLB:  194 PA (30th), OPS .630 (20th)
totals 6123 PA ( 9th), OPS .726 (11th)

Their platooning had them near the bottom of the majors in unfavorable matchups, and near the top in the favorable ones.  (These numbers include switch-hitters batting the way they do against a given pitcher.)

The lefty hitters were putrid when they faced lefties, but they had the fewest opportunities of any team so it wasn't much of a burden.  Among righty batters against righties, Buxton and Correa are pretty good hitters. so they weren't part of any platooning and the OPS is overall really quite good.

It's the FAVORABLE matchup for the left-handed batters that held the team down.  It was the most frequent matchup and they didn't do much clobberin'.  Sorting by PA, Willi Castro did okay (.733 OPS) for a guy who is here for his versatility on the field and who by rights shouldn't be leading the team in plate appearances period.  Next was Carlos Santana and his OPS was .676 - that's just unplayable at a bat-first position, but they played him anyway.  Larnach was good (.784) but Kepler was frustrating (.672) and like Santana was unplayable.  Next is Julien, at an even more unplayable .620 and they did finally take steps with him.  Wallner was the only guy who clobbered, .972, in limited playing time at the major league level.  Kiriloff was at .663 and we know he wasn't right physically. Finally is Brooks Lee with .580 in 133 chances from the favorable matchup; I'm all for starting him at St Paul this season and have him work his way back up.

That's a bunch of guys, too many guys, underperforming when put into favorable matchups.  You can't fix that by demoting or cutting them all, though three of the prime offenders are no longer with the team.  It's the number one thing that the new batting coach needs to figure out, among the holdover players.

This is a strategic look.  Getting down to specific tactics such as pinch-hitting isn't covered by this analysis.  But in the big picture, management achieved what they set out to do in-season, and the lefty batters let them down.

I think this is actually evidence in how their macro focus is wrong. It's not about individual players; it's about generalizations with them. Santana can stand in the left-handed batter's box so he's golden (obviously, his defense also played a role in him getting ABs). Wallner can't stand (well doesn't, I suppose he could it just wouldn't be pretty) in the right-handed batter's box so he's cut off. Wallner's performance against lefties in the minors doesn't earn him any extra leeway in the majors because of the box he stands in, not because of his performance. 

Willi has been bad against lefties in both of his years with the Twins, but he can stand in the other box so he gets to be bad (again, defense plays a role here). That's my, and I believe other's, complaint. Platooning makes sense and should be done. But Wallner putting up .900+ OPS numbers against lefties in the high minors should get him a chance to hit lefties on a regular basis (sit him against Skubal and Snell types, sure), but it doesn't. Not because of him and his performance, but simply because he's left-handed. It's frustratingly rigid based on the L/R/B next to their names on the lineup card.

Platooning makes sense and should be used. Every team uses it. It's the rigidness based on macro level analytics instead of micro level analysis that frustrates me.

[ashbury]

5 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

i.e. Wallner starts the game against a RHP. In inning 6, the opposing team goes to a LHP out of the bullpen. Baldelli pulls Wallner in favor of Margot. Wallner gets 2 plate appearances, Margot gets 3 plate appearances (1 against a LHP, 2 against RHP)

This happened a few times.  It's not a key to understanding the season though.

Wallner played in only 75 games, in the first place.  Of those, 43 were complete games - yes in a majority of times Rocco left him in. In 11 others, he was the one brought in, in the 7th inning or later, to finish the game.  A couple of times he was brought in for the 6th inning and got 1 plate appearance.

That leaves 19 games where he started the game and didn't finish. He was never taken out sooner than the 6th inning - zero cases of coming up once to start the game and then coming out.  In 9 of the 19 games he had 3 PA and in 6 others he had 4 or 5.  I count 4 of these games as having just 2 PA; 2 of these games were in April when he was going badly.  

Putrid as Margot the righty was, it doesn't seem like a hill to die on, to me.  Not when lefties failing against RHP were a much more systematic problem for the team.

[bean5302]

1 minute ago, ashbury said:

This happened a few times.  It's not a key to understanding the season though.

Wallner played in only 75 games, in the first place.  Of those, 43 were complete games - yes in a majority of times Rocco left him in. In 11 others, he was the one brought in, in the 7th inning or later, to finish the game.  A couple of times he was brought in for the 6th inning and got 1 plate appearance.

That leaves 19 games where he started the game and didn't finish. He was never taken out sooner than the 6th inning - zero cases of coming up once to start the game and then coming out.  In 9 of the 19 games he had 3 PA and in 6 others he had 4 or 5.  I count 4 of these games as having just 2 PA; 2 of these games were in April when he was going badly.  

Putrid as Margot the righty was, it doesn't seem like a hill to die on, to me.  Not when lefties failing against RHP were a much more systematic problem for the team.

Just giving an off the cuff example representing Rocco's philosophy and how it has seemingly hurt the team over and over again throughout the year in various situations. I've done actual data analysis before, but I didn't feel like going into it. Comments have been made about how Baldelli allowed Kepler to bat against lefties, but Keplers PA/G vs. lefties has been steadily dropping for years as Baldelli platooned him more and more. It's the situational thing.

[Maybe Next Year]

I question those who believe Wallner/ Larnach/ Miranda aren’t good hitters. It seems every time them come to the plate in an important situation Baldelli pinch hits for them. Hard to be a good hitter when you only get two at bats per game and you only play maybe two days in a row. I would love to see what they can do if given a chance to play everyday and stay in the lineup past the 5th inning. 

[TheLeviathan]

Why do we continue to think that the manager and the FO aren't on the same page on this strategy?

[T.O.]

4 hours ago, rv78 said:

Mentally he doesn't have what it takes to be a Manager.

I'll go one further and say he doesn't approach baseball like he has any sense of intuition at all.

(I wanted to say he doesn't approach baseball like he's even human but my wife said that's too harsh so I won't.)

[T.O.]

39 minutes ago, Maybe Next Year said:

I question those who believe Wallner/ Larnach/ Miranda aren’t good hitters. It seems every time them come to the plate in an important situation Baldelli pinch hits for them. Hard to be a good hitter when you only get two at bats per game and you only play maybe two days in a row. I would love to see what they can do if given a chance to play everyday and stay in the lineup past the 5th inning. 

Hard for young players to get good at hitting both ways if not given the chance.
I read all the articles about potential hot prospects in the minors but my heart aches because they probably won't be given a decent chance.

[old nurse]

I think the front office move that has hampered Baldelli is the inability to develop lefties who can hit righties. The other front office move would appear to be not developing fielding prowess in the minors. The ability to develop fielding seems to have left when Tom Kelly retired 

[RpR]

2 hours ago, Maybe Next Year said:

I question those who believe Wallner/ Larnach/ Miranda aren’t good hitters. It seems every time them come to the plate in an important situation Baldelli pinch hits for them. Hard to be a good hitter when you only get two at bats per game and you only play maybe two days in a row. I would love to see what they can do if given a chance to play everyday and stay in the lineup past the 5th inning. 

End up like Lewis?

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, T.O. said:

I'll go one further and say he doesn't approach baseball like he has any sense of intuition at all.

(I wanted to say he doesn't approach baseball like he's even human but my wife said that's too harsh so I won't.)

I think this is a ridiculous comment. Seriously. I’m not suggesting that he’s a great manager, or even good, but he was a very, very good player. You don’t get that way on pure talent alone. I think he has very good baseball sense. But not the best manager sense. It’s unfortunate that his life as a player doesn’t translate as well as a manager.

[T.O.]

3 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

I think this is a ridiculous comment. Seriously. I’m not suggesting that he’s a great manager, or even good, but he was a very, very good player. You don’t get that way on pure talent alone. I think he has very good baseball sense. But not the best manager sense. It’s unfortunate that his life as a player doesn’t translate as well as a manager.

Maybe I was trying to be too clever. Often people combat frustration with an attempt at humor. I see Baldelli as the worst part of the Twins organization and their current situation. I don't care about his time as a player. Beyond him not being the best manager I think he is so awful I think he is ruining the game. Not everyone agrees, maybe very few agree. I've read a lot of comments I thought were ridiculous. Many people here are passionate about their beliefs. That's mine. Sometimes if I don't laugh I'll cry.
I do appreciate your comment though.

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Stop bringing facts to an emotional argument...

Take out the horrible PH stats and those numbers would go up (but yes, PH is part of the story).  Players gotta perform when given the opportunity.

The value of data/facts depends on how applicable the data set is to the conclusion. GIGO (garbage in-garbage out) is a real thing. Not saying @ashbury 's conclusion is incorrect, but as he noted, it's tough to pinpoint how perfect the data was when applying it to the Twins in specific scenarios.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

3 hours ago, ashbury said:

This is going to be unpopular.  But basic stats show that the platooning worked.  The key players failed.

b-r.com provides league splits, on which you can drill down to an individual team's splits.  For L/R pitchers and L/R batters there are 4 combinations, and I clicked on each then sorted by Plate Appearances and by OPS.  Here are the Twins' rankings against the rest of the majors:

RPvRB: 2102 PA (24th), OPS .733 (5th)
RPvLB: 2394 PA ( 7th), OPS .716 (17th)
LPvRB: 1433 PA ( 4th), OPS .746 (9th)
LPvLB:  194 PA (30th), OPS .630 (20th)
totals 6123 PA ( 9th), OPS .726 (11th)

Their platooning had them near the bottom of the majors in opportunities with unfavorable matchups, and near the top in the favorable ones.  (These numbers include switch-hitters batting the way they prefer against a given pitcher.)

The lefty hitters were putrid when they faced lefties, but they had the fewest opportunities of any team so it wasn't as much of a burden.  Among righty batters against righties, Buxton and Correa are pretty good hitters. so they weren't part of any platooning which arguably held the PA higher, while Miranda did well too, and the OPS is overall really quite good.

It's the FAVORABLE matchup for the left-handed batters that held the team down.  It was the most frequent matchup and they didn't do much clobberin'.  Sorting by PA, Willi Castro did okay (.733 OPS) for a guy who is here for his versatility on the field and who by rights shouldn't be leading the team in plate appearances period.  Next was Carlos Santana and his OPS was .676 - that's just unplayable at a bat-first position, but they played him anyway (in fairness he was signed as a Plan B).  Larnach was good (.784) but Kepler was frustrating (.672) and again at a bat-first position was objectively unplayable.  Next is Julien, at an even more unplayable .620 and they did finally take steps with him.  Wallner was the only guy who clobbered, .972, in limited playing time at the major league level.  Kiriloff was at .663 and we know he wasn't right physically. Finally is Brooks Lee with .580 in 133 chances from the favorable matchup; I'm all for starting him at St Paul this season and have him work his way back up.

That's a bunch of guys, too many guys, underperforming when put into favorable matchups.  You can't fix that by demoting or cutting them all, though three of the prime offenders are no longer with the team.  It's the number one thing that the new batting coach needs to figure out, among the holdover players.

This is a strategic look.  Getting down to specific tactics such as pinch-hitting isn't covered by this analysis.  And it ignores the perhaps bigger-picture aim of letting left-handed batters get more experience against LHP and (perhaps) improve with time.  But management achieved what they set out to do in-season, and we might be singing a different tune if the lefty batters didn't let them down big time.

The Twins led the league in PAs as a sub 356, sporting a .662 OPS ranked 13th, but it netted them an 83 tOPS+ (compared to player’s overall split). Vs as a starter they carried a 101 tOPS+ so the substitute hitters cost 18% production overall.

yes, the pinch hit appearance raised the as a starter split tOPS+, but they had 120 PAs more than average of 83 tOPS+

 

[Major League Ready]

5 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

I think Bader will play much more than we are hearing, for several reasons. Most days he's one ot the top 9 hitters even if it's 8 or 9.  He'll already be in a lot of starting lineups with Larnach and Waller with the DH rotation. The platoon opportunities are dramatically decreased if he's basically a starter. Should Larnach play any first base he's a full time player.

He's well ahead of Castro in the outfield rotation by my figuring. 

You're probably right but I am hoping for Rodriquez to crush it for 6-8 weeks at AAA and make his way on the big-league team.  That would drastically change the lineup construction.  One of Wallner or Larnach will still DH but Bader's role would change substantially.  This might be a bit optimistic but I will continue to wish for this development because it would be huge for this team.  He hits both LHP & RHP and is a very good defender.  We will see him almost everyday.  He just needs to cut down the strike outs.  Anyone know if he played any winter ball?

[ashbury]

18 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

The Twins led the league in PAs as a sub 356, sporting a .662 OPS ranked 13th, but it netted them an 83 tOPS+ (compared to player’s overall split). Vs as a starter they carried a 101 tOPS+ so the substitute hitters cost 18% production overall.

yes, the pinch hit appearance raised the as a starter split tOPS+, but they had 120 PAs more than average of 83 tOPS+

 

Is it fair to say that 356 times, the Twins did their best to put batters into a favorable matchup (more often than not), and time after time those batters failed to come through?