Failure to Launch: Twins Bats Yet to Achieve Liftoff

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On one hand, the team led the American League in home runs, but on the other, they struck out 1,654 times, more than any other team in major-league history. They embodied the “all-or-nothing” approach, and it paid off, as the team began to heat up late in the summer and into the fall.

IMO the better indicator of the success of this team due to hitting is not the "all-or-nothing" approach that this FO is advocating because this approach was adopted since the '19 "juiced ball" & a good part of that time this offense stunk. The offense stunk in '23 until Royce Lewis came up who sparked this offense until he went down after 2 days into '24. The presence of Lewis is directly correlated to the success of this offense. Not the "all-or-nothing" approach which more often strikeout in clutch situations. 

I think a big reason that the launch angle is so low & our offense is so poor this season is because our main contact hitters Santana, Margot & Martin are hitting poorly. I'm confident that when Martin is adjusted to MLB; Santana & Margot problems are worked out; Buxton & Correa really get going & the return of Lewis this offense will be awesome, in spite of the "all-or-nothing" approach.

I'm not against launch angles, I'm against approaches whether it is pushing hitters to hit for contact on every pitch or to hit HRs. Baseball is a game of adjusting when we are set in one approach we can't maximize on each pitch. Also we need to develop each hitter to better them whether they are a slugger or more of a contact hitter.

8 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

 

I think a big reason that the launch angle is so low & our offense is so poor this season is because our main contact hitters Santana, Margot & Martin are hitting poorly. I'm confident that when Martin is adjusted to MLB

Martin has 3 at bats so I don't think he plays in the good or bad of the team so far. The problem is farmer has 10 at bats already (0 hits), Castro is 2/16, Kepler is 1/13, Jeffers is 2/15, and Julien is 2/15, and somehow Wallner only has 7 at bats with 1 hit and 5 K's. It is too early to start worrying and the Twins are above .500, but would like to see at least a couple of these guys or more start to heat it up at home.

I wonder if the launch angle problem is linked to pitchers throwing stuff that usually breaks downward. If Batter A swings to hit flat, then pitches that duck down late will be topped, turning into a lot of ground ball outs. Conversely, if Batter B swings intentionally from low to high, then a certain percentage of those ducking pitches will either be driven to the fences or over the fence. Some of those pitches will still be ground balls, but fewer than Batter A.

Right now the Twins are topping too many balls. Maybe it's all part of the cat and mouse game. If a pitcher comes in throwing a lot of sinking stuff, manager should tell his guys to switch to an uppercut swing. Good hitters should be able to do either kind of swing, right?

It's way too early to panic. They were the exact same way thru a decent portion of last season too. Give them a little time to find the groove. If we're still doing this on August 1st, then I'd go low on the Defcon scale. 

I agree with you Hunter that Castro should work on his launch angle & get back to last season's success.  Jeffers #s weren't that great in '21 & '22. Jeffers worked on his swing in '23 & had some success, I'm curious about what his average launch angle was in '23 compared to '21 & '22.

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Slow start, or early signs of a new approach implementation? 

A very interesting question. I doubt that they are ditching the "all-or-nothing" approach (unfortunately) but they might be dialing back on it, to curb the SOs and players like Castro are overcompensating and eventually get back to hitting better. Which in this case is very encouraging to me. 

Jeffers has stated after last night's game, that he'd made a minor adjustment. Hopefully, he'll continue to rake.

3 hours ago, Patzky said:

Joey Gallo goes deep. Mr April.

As far as launch angle goes, last year, Joey seemed to try to set altitude records on some of his home runs; 400 feet high and barely clearing the fence.😆

Someone else here mentioned that our swings are often all or nothing and that we seem to be hitting grounder, grounder, grounder.  I love the new analytics kind of baseball, but I've often wondered that while our current leaders do make decisions on these analytics that other teams are also doing the same thing, but doing a better job of using their analytics to adjust to our team's analytical decisions?

Example - they know we're only going to try to hit with good launch angles and high exit velocity.  Therefore - only give us pitches that are the hardest to hit with good launch angles or high exit velocity.

That's how I'd pitch us.

3 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Kirilloff seems to have his launch angle working!!

Just tripled off the wall in CF v. Guardians - double/triple Wednesday - flew out twice to the Track in another game - batting near .500……..appears healthy!!

Right now, he a Correa are the only bright spots on the team.

2 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Kepler is on pace to thrill us with 5 hits in his first 100 AB’s………..the epitome of “Failure to launch!” Come on MAX!!

Max and most of the team were chasing crap today; they gave Julien one down the pipe and he took advantage.