Outfield Whisperer Grady Sizemore Needs to Speak Louder to Luke Keaschall

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

"I just follow the card," Luke Keaschall said last week, standing in the home dugout at Target Field. "I take the card Grady makes for me and go where he tells me."

Keaschall has been an outfielder for just over a month now and racked up 246 innings there so far, with 137 of those innings coming in center field. He's doing his best to sand off the rough edges, but he's a confident athlete who wants to trust his instincts and play without fear. He's highly complimentary of Sizemore, who wants the same things.

"He just tells us to be free, be relaxed and ready out there," Keaschall said. "He wants us to be comfortable and go get the ball; pretty simple."

It is. It also isn't, and there seems to be a key detail Keaschall, Sizemore and the Twins have overlooked. As Cody Schoenmann wrote last month, Keaschall has been playing deeper in center field than almost anyone else in the sport, often to the detriment of his ability to catch lazy fly balls. After Keaschall noted that the positioning card with which the team furnishes him indicates in which direction and by how much to shade each batter, I asked how he and Sizemore set his initial position. Therein, as it turns out, lies the rub: It's all Keaschall. Trying to preserve his comfort, the Twins have been hands-off when it comes to setting the default starting spot for Keaschall in center. He adjusts based on information from batter to batter, but his anchor—his starting point, taking the batter's tendencies out of the equation—is his own to drop.

That's a mistake, and it's become a glaring one. When a ball falls in front of Keaschall because of a poor read or a mistaken last-second adjustment—two things we've seen happen to him multiple times already—that's understandable. Even great athletes need time to learn the nuances and to get accustomed to the specific skills of playing a new position. Over the weekend, we saw the latest instance of that, when Keaschall was unable to catch a ball that had a 90% catch probability, based on his starting position, the landing point of the ball and the hang time on the ball. He took a bad route, and when he did bend his run in toward the sinking liner, he did so too hesitantly.

However, just as often, we're seeing Keaschall prove unable to catch balls that should have been not only catchable, but easy. They're not even counting against him in some defensive metrics, because based on his starting position, they were uncatchable—but that's an indictment of his starting position, which he and the Twins say is his own to determine right now. This ball, which Keaschall misplayed into a triple, counts against him almost only because of the extra bases he allowed by mishandling the ball, according to Statcast. It gives the liner a 5% catch probability. But if Keaschall had been playing 10 feet shallower (as he unequivocally should have been, against low-power Nico Hoerner), that expected catch rate would be much, much higher. Whether Keaschall himself would have gotten to the ball is a fair question, but by starting so deep, he gave himself no chance.

One reason for the Twins' willingness to let Keaschall play so deep, manager Derek Shelton indicated, is so he can feel less fear and be at less risk when going back toward the wall. That benefit hasn't materialized, though. More than once, Keaschall has gotten too close to the wall and had the ball carom past him. More than once, he's short-armed possible catches as he nears the wall, bracing for impact rather than making the play. Meanwhile, he's been forced to charge in an out-of-control way on liners in front of him, often with disastrous results. 

The coaching staff needs to intervene, rather than passively waiting for Keaschall to get more comfortable and move in a few steps. They need to address this issue immediately, to clean up their defense at a vital spot while Byron Buxton remains on the injured list. Unless and until they do, Sizemore's capacity to influence his pupils will go to waste where Keaschall is concerned.

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[Hawkeye Bean Counter]

Keaschall's home is most likely at 2nd base.  I would rather him get more opportunity there.  

[c24]

I'm not convinced that Sizemore is an OF whisperer. The start of the season we kept on hearing how Larnach was improved defensively but that just has not been the case at all. It's painful watching him chase fly balls sometimes.

[bean5302]

How to open and close a glove when the baseball arrives is something that can be taught to a guy who was supposed to learn that 10 years ago? Literally, that's Keaschall's problem. Doesn't know how to catch a baseball when he gets to it.

[LA Vikes Fan]

I agree that it can be painful to watch Larnach chase fly balls but I don't think that's Sizemore's fault. I think that's because Larnach simply can't run for crap. The guy has a great skill in putting the bat to the ball but he is not a great athlete by any stretch of the imagination. To call him lumbering is actually a compliment. Still, he runs better than Wallner, who I would describe as more glacial in approach. I'm not sure whose idea it was to put Buxton in center, flank him with those two guys, and expect to have a competent defensive outfield. I hope whoever that was is no longer in a position of authority. 

[Bodie]

I've seen very few players look so athletic getting near to a ball in play, and so unathlethic when he's there!