Edouard Julien’s Development Dilemma: Chasing Improvement Or a Mirage?

1 hour ago, arby58 said:

Snipping a lot of interesting discussion - thank you for that. I like to focus on numbers, because it is what I best understand. 5% is 'nothing to sneeze at' until we look at what it would mean to 'move the dial' to the average for the Twins as a team against LHP. In 2023, it would have been 20 additional ABs. I highly doubt that Wallner, with 20 additional ABs against LHP that year would have transformed himself into a better hitter against them. That would be the equivalent of about 3 at bats a month.  Besides, only a true 'everyday player' gets the same share of at bats against their same sided pitcher, so it's probably more like 10. Obviously, you would slightly more than double that number for an 11 percent difference, but, again, is it really 20 at bats that are killing his development?

I like the numbers, too, but ignoring the other stuff, in my opinion, misses part of the point. There is a mental aspect to things in believing you're an everyday guy and worrying about every PA and what it'll mean for your career.

But back to the numbers. A player who plays 150 games in a season (a pretty good mark to measure an "everyday" player this day and age) will get between about 625 and 675 PAs depending on where in the order they hit and how good their offense is. Some may be as low as 600 others up by 700. But 625-675 is the general range. Let's call it 650 for the ease of discussion. At 650 PAs a year, 23% of your PAs would be 149.5 PAs. 18% would be 117. So now we're talking low 30s in missed PAs. Keeping with our 4.3 PAs/GM measure, that's over 7 games worth of PAs. 28% of PAs would be 182 PAs vs 17% at 110.5. Now we're talking over 70 PAs. That's 17 games worth of PAs at the 4.3 PA/GM measure.

I believe those are significant numbers. It's not just about the limited PAs Wallner has gotten since he hasn't played full seasons, it's about the overall approach. The Twins have gotten extreme with their platooning the last few seasons. Shohei and Schwarber were at 249 and 248 PAs left on left last year. I already gave you that Henderson had 217. There were 12 guys over 200 (that's more than the entire Twins team). 27 over 150. The high mark for Wallner based on a full season's worth of PAs and your percentages would be 117. There were 42 guys in baseball that beat that number last year. There aren't 42 guys in baseball putting up Matt Wallner numbers.

The concern is the overall approach. Will they change it for stars or are they going to limit them to 100 to 120 PAs when they could be getting 200-250? Of the 42 guys with 120 or more left on left PAs, the average wRC+ against lefties was 105. 20 of them were at or over 100. 25 at or over 90. 35 at or over 80. The league's total wRC+ left on left was 89. That's a .668 OPS. The Twins pinch hitters last year had a wRC+ of 57 and an OPS of .546.

Rocco stated in an interview about a month ago that they plan to keep doing the pinch hitting/platooning stuff because they believe it was a big reason for their success in 2023. That's a solid belief based on their wRC+ of 101 and OPS of .724 pinch hitting in 2023. But in 2022 those numbers were 66 and .546. In 2021 they were 59 and .552. So, my question to you is, do those pinch hitting numbers make you believe it's the right strategy to pinch hit for all lefties as frequently as they do or do you think Wallner (who had a better left on left OPS than the Twins pinch hitters as a whole had last year) or Jenkins or Emma or Larnach or Julien or any of them should be given the chance to just be an average lefty hitter against lefty pitching which would blow our pinch hitters out of the water in 3 of the last 4 seasons?

And this doesn't even get into Rocco's weird habit of stacking his lefties specifically to get a lefty into the game so he can go to his pinch hitters. Spacing them out would give Wallner, Julien, Larnach, etc. more PAs against righties as the opposing manager would have to pick his place to use his lefties. Either they are burning multiple lefties every game or the one be brings in faces 1 lefty and multiple righties just to get to another lefty. The strategy, to me, feels awfully flawed.

4 minutes ago, arby58 said:

You can't compare Wallner's numbers over a full season until he actually plays one. Using anything other than his actual statistics is conjecture.

Your stats aren't "actual statistics" either as they don't take into account what the actual number of opportunities Wallner had to face a lefty were. Your stats are the same kind of conjecture as mine as you're assuming/projecting his percentage would/should match the team average for the year without taking into account when he was on the team and what instances he could've faced a lefty but didn't. You're using full season team stats to project what Wallner's % should have been. That's conjecture, too. Maybe a little more dialed in than mine, but conjecture nonetheless. 

But the point isn't about Wallner himself. It's about the Twins approach to lefty hitters, especially the ones who may be stars. It's about Wallner, Julien, Larnach, Rodriguez, Jenkins, whoever you think may be a star. That's where this all started. The article talks about Julien essentially dedicating his entire offseason hitting program to hitting lefties better to try to convince his organization to let him hit against lefties on a regular basis. The guy was one of their best hitters the year before and decided his only shot at being an everyday player was to dedicate his entire offseason to hitting lefties to try to convince his organization to give him a chance to be a star. 

Julien is telling us that lefties on this team don't feel like they have a legit chance to be everyday players unless they go above and beyond. That isn't the case in other organizations. I, and some others, have a problem with this.

Just now, arby58 said:

I'm not feeling their angst. If you are a left handed hitter, the statistics suggest you are going to be in the lineup two-thirds to three-fourths of the time, because that is the difference in righthanded versus lefthanded pitching. 

It's not your career so I'm sure you aren't feeling their angst. Joc Pederson puts up massive numbers. Last 3 OPS+ numbers are 146, 112, and 151. Career OPS of 119. But he's a platoon bat. He's made 62 mil in his career (according to spotrac). Can't get anyone to sign him to big, long-term money. Got 2 years, 37 mil this offseason coming off that 3 year run. Got "just" 12.5 the year before. There's a very real difference between being an everyday player and a platoon bat when it comes to guy's careers. You may not feel their angst, but it's a very real thing. 

1 minute ago, arby58 said:

It's a stretch to suggest that he would put up those OPS+ numbers were he an everyday player. Look at his OPS splits - his first year wasn't too bad - .784/.691 - but his second year it was .918/.469. Other than the shortened 2020 (small sample size) he's never performed better against LHP - and the difference last year was .923/.749. 

Joc has played for six teams (Dodgers, Cubs, Braves, Giants, Diamondbacks, Rangers) and can't get any of them to play him regularly against LHP - you think there might be a reason?

Yes, there's a reason. He can't hit them. That isn't the point. The point is that you said you weren't "feeling their angst" because lefties still play 2/3 to 3/4 of the time (107-122 games per year, BTW) because that's how many righty pitchers there are. The "angst" of Twins lefties is that they're being forced into the Joc Pederson box without a real chance of getting into the everyday player box and that has a real effect on their career.

I never claimed Pederson would put up those numbers if he played everyday, he was the example that there's very real consequences to Wallner, Julien, Rodriguez, Larnach, Jenkins, etc. being put in the "platoon" box for the first 6 years of their careers. Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars worth of consequences. Players care about that. 

If your bosses were actively holding you back from a potential promotion with a significant pay increase would you "feel angst?" I sure would.

15 minutes ago, arby58 said:

I appreciated your 'he can't hit them' comment - a true first LOL of the day.

Taking Rodriguez and Jenkins out of the discussion because we have no way of knowing how the Twins would use them, but one of the differentiators for a player besides offense is defense. None of the remainder of the group you mentioned (Wallner, Julien, Larnach) is a particularly good defensive player, and Julien's defensive runs saved at 2B is well below average. Even when Buxton isn't hitting, you want him in the lineup for his defensive play and disrupting speed on the bases. It's possible either Rodriguez or Jenkins will also provide that differentiation.

Also, none of the three were ever a top 10 prospect in all of minor league baseball, ala Jenkins. He might end up being a Kyle Tucker type of player who plays every day regardless of who is pitching. My prediction is that if he is putting up Tucker-like numbers, he'll play everyday.

These 2 lefty hitters are pretty similar, right? You probably take the one on the left, but neither has crazy better surface stats, right?

One of them is currently playing on a 4 year, $79 million deal and is rumored to be working on another similar deal as an extension. They'll have made $100 million by the end of this year (their 10th MLB season). The other just finished a 1 year, $12.5 million deal and is playing on a 1 year, $15.75 million deal with 2 option (1 player, 1 mutual) years for 21.25 and 18.5 after. They'll have made $57 million by the end of this year (their 11th MLB season).

Neither is a good defender in the least.

Kyle Schwarber had a .481 OPS against lefties his rookie year. Then .648 and .654. He wasn't platooned. Those first 2 numbers aren't significantly higher than Wallner's. After those first 3 years he jumped up into the .700s for OPS against lefties and has mostly maintained that. And he's going to make $100 million more than Pederson for his career. 

Our concern is that they're going to treat Rodriguez and Jenkins the same as the rest. We don't know if they will, but all signs point to it and that's our concern. And, again, Wallner put up an OPS over .900 against lefties in multiple seasons at AA and AAA. .900! But that isn't enough to get him an early shot at everyday playing time. Your prediction can be that for Jenkins, but we haven't seen it. If they have 4 or more lefties they can't platoon them all. But going back to at least 2021, the Twins have platooned all their lefties during any time they have 3 or fewer lefties on their roster. Always. With no exception. Our concerns are valid as they're based on real life, actual decisions made by the Twins.

Pederson wasn't even platooned his first full season. And had a .691 OPS against lefties. Tanked (.469 OPS) against them his second season while being platooned. Platooned again his 3rd year at .597. Has essentially been platooned ever since his 2nd year and has seen his limited PA OPS bounce around, but his career OPS against lefties is .630. Not .450 or anything, but he's a platoon bat now and it's cost him significantly. There are very real consequences to guy's careers.