Do the Twins Know How to Teach a Sinker When They Need To?

It's interesting how an organization, sports or business, can unintentionally drift away from something due to lack of emphasis or trends.  Then when the need arises it takes an old timer to say, hey, remember when we did xyz?  It then takes time to spin back up that old technique.

No idea what the Twins are emphasizing in Louies case, but fortunately for them this is a relatively easy issue to solve for sports teams.  We can complain about payroll all we want but that's usually only for one player. Smart money spent in the player development/support organization effects everyone at a fraction of the cost of a middle reliever.  

If Louie needs help developing a sinker, that specific coach/guru and tech is available for a very reasonable price, especially if the payoff is a controlled front line starter.  The rest of the org might benefit as well.

The sinker fell out of favor with the launch angle revolution. Guys had been increasingly swinging their bats like golf clubs to try and lift balls into the seats. An improperly placed sinker can put itself directly into the "Tiger Uppercut" whereas, say, 10 years ago, the flatter swings designed to hit more line drives and put the ball into play would make weak contact against the pitch.

Obviously, putting any pitch in a location the batter isn't likely to put a good swing on it can make the pitch effective, but the sinker just became a dangerous gopher ball machine IMHO.

Of course things may be changing again with the elimination of the extreme shift. Everything goes in circles.

IMO they need to put Varland in the pen. He doesn't need a sinker there. I agree with the philosophy of refining what the player does well. Varland throws hard so let him relieve where he doesn't really need a bunch of different pitches.

2 hours ago, LambchoP said:

Seems to me the Twins have been obsessed with sliders the past few years. We've acquired a few guys and then immediately tried to have them throw way more sliders. Problem is if the location sucks, you get home runs. It's too bad the twins give up the most home runs in baseball, because if our starters could keep the ball in the park, we'd have one of the better staffs in the AL...

I think the Twins are obsessed with "cutting edge" stuff in general. The sweeper is the most glaring example that comes to mind right now.

23 hours ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

I'm not particularly sure that Varland needs a sinker in his repertoire, but I agree that the Twins have not had success adding that pitch to anyone starter's repertoire.

It's been Pablo's worst pitch (.448/.484/.690), a bad pitch for Joe Ryan (.333/.368/.333) and Louie as detailed above.

Team wide, it's the 2nd worst pitch they throw as a staff to the cutter with a .295/.358/.397 slash against and a miniscule 10.8% K-rate. 

So statistically they should throw even fewer sinkers.

22 hours ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

Fewer of these bad ones, at least.

Reminds me of a hilarious Colorado Rockies commercial from years ago.

Obviously, the answer is "Yes, the Twins know how to teach a sinker."  Given the current environment and the current talent, they haven't deemed it necessary or important.  The implied incompetence of the title of the article seems a bit overblown at best, and disingenuous at worst. 

I personally tire of the "Is this true?!?!?" or "Could this be?!?!?"  headlines.  These imply that there is a crisis somewhere that needs immediate attention, and yet seldom do these things rise to that level.   We can do (and have done) better than that.