The Twins, the All-or-Nothing October Effect, and How to Cure It

I am not a fan of an all or nothing approach. I also don't believe that's what the Twins are trying to do, even though it was the result for most of the season. I'm still quite curious what happened with the players only meetings and Popkins adjustments after which things were much better.

The all or nothing approach and strikeouts themselves are indicators, not strategic goals. The Twins have been clear that they are not managing to the number of strikeouts and that is completely correct. The focus is a good at bat and hitting the ball hard when they do swing. If a strikeout is the result of a good at bat, nobody cares. If it's a crappy at bat, which we saw far to much of last year, the strikeout is an expected result.

The strikeout isn't necessarily the problem, the bad at bat was the issue. If a good at bat was taken it still advances the offense.

Several of the hitters classified as all or nothing are capable of good, long at bats making the pitching work. Julien can swing as hard as he wants during a 10 pitch at bat, the important part is that he has the ability to regularly have good at bats. All or nothing is the wrong term when they are more than happy to walk.

The route to postseason success is making really good pitchers work really, really hard, even if they are getting outs. Offenses score runs by keeping pitchers under stress. A well timed bunt can do that but not like a leadoff double.  This lineup can be very potent in the postseason as they have enough hitters capable of good at bats in 9 spots. They just have to take that next step.

5 minutes ago, Karbo said:

If I had to put together a Pitching rotation for the playoffs I would be looking for guys in the low HR, high ground ball type, with a decent K%. Obviously, there's not a lot of those out there. Twins hitters need to work on their 2 strike approach. That not saying they always use it with 2 strikes, but there are times (think runner on 3rd or even 2nd with less than 2 outs. I got so frustrated last year to see a guy on 3rd with nobody out, infield back, and the next 2 guys K. There the guy stands on 3rd and they missed a chance to score a run.

I'm basically on board with disregarding the RBI as an opportunity stat but I still don't understand why we aren't measuring a success rate in these situations. Regardless of approach, the hitters job is still to get that runner in. I believe it's a skill that can be developed without automatically giving up an out.

For me the frustrating part of the Twins season was the lack of situational hitting. Against the Astros in the playoffs how many at bats did the Twins have with the bases loaded and failed to score. It was way too many.  Sometimes a single is all that separates a W from an L. 

45 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

but I still don't understand why we aren't measuring a success rate in these situations.

There is a stat (kind of) that measures outcomes vs run expectancy for the 24 possible scenarios. It is RE24. In Fangraphs it is under the win probability stats. 
 

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=3&season=2023&season1=2023&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&startdate=2023-10-03&enddate=2023-11-01&sortcol=4&sortdir=default&postseason=D

2 hours ago, Karbo said:

If I had to put together a Pitching rotation for the playoffs I would be looking for guys in the low HR, high ground ball type, with a decent K%. Obviously, there's not a lot of those out there. Twins hitters need to work on their 2 strike approach. That not saying they always use it with 2 strikes, but there are times (think runner on 3rd or even 2nd with less than 2 outs. I got so frustrated last year to see a guy on 3rd with nobody out, infield back, and the next 2 guys K. There the guy stands on 3rd and they missed a chance to score a run.

Frustrating as h#ll.

Good call on Santana.  He's now a Twin.