Twins Lack Punch From Middle Of The Order

For Plouffe, April and May were extremely successful months in the batter's’ box. In the season’s first two months he helped buoy the middle of the order -- one that was vacated by Torii Hunter early in the season. At the end of May, he was holding the second-highest OPS on the team as well as a robust .721 slugging percentage with runners in scoring position. Plouffe was productive at all the right times which helped propel the Twins’ offense forward and confounded analysts attempting to explain how the Minnesota ballclub was on top of their division.

Admittedly, the turn of the calendar is an arbitrary moment in the baseball season; nothing changes in the competition or in the player just because it is Ms. June’s time to shine on the clubhouse wall. That notwithstanding, Plouffe has appeared like an entirely different hitter this stretch. Mired in an extended 2-for-32 slump -- one which he showed signs of shaking off on Tuesday night by lashing a triple off the wall in right field -- Plouffe is wrestling with the toughest element of the game: adjusting to a new plan of attack.

In the days bygone, reports traveled by word of tobacco-filled mouth. Now information is binary and able to be downloaded, disseminated and acted upon by the very next game. But baseball’s information game is a two-way street. The pitchers are armed with data and the hitters are prepared in kind. “We get so much information it can choke a cow,” Twins hitting coach Tom Brunansky likes to say about the flow of knowledge pertaining to his area of expertise. So shouldn’t hitters be just as prepared as their pitcher counterparts?

While baseball’s hitter-pitcher matchup should behave like a stalemate cold war, the fact is the advantage often goes to the player who possesses the ball and is able to throw the pitch he wants.

The problem for hitters is that the game never sleeps. Not for a second. Coaches, pitchers, scouts, and front office analysts are all trying to find the right combination that will get you out. If you were hitting balls hard in a certain situations, with a certain pitch, in a certain area of the zone, there is a strong chance that things will change the next time around. That has essentially happened to Plouffe. After showing that he could drive the ball on the outer-half to the opposite field, teams have tried something else.

Somewhere between the end of May and the beginning of June, pitchers started to add another wrinkle. In the first two months pitchers would hammer him away with fastballs (40% inner-half of the zone). However, since the beginning of his slump, they have shifted that attack inside just off the plate (60% inner-half) and Plouffe has been unable to resist or put the ball in play effectively.

The ESPN TruMedia heat maps below show how pitchers have shifted from throwing fastballs away to the inside portion:

There has been a concerted effort particularly by right-handed pitchers to pound two-seamers in off the plate on Plouffe. In Fenway against the Red Sox, Plouffe offered at a running fastball that was down-and-in on a an one-one count:

http://i.imgur.com/J00dTNw.gif

When the Brewers visited, Milwaukee reliever Jeremy Jeffress also ran a fastball in off the plate which Plouffe bounced out on a one-oh count:

http://i.imgur.com/9tVPm4o.gif

Those types of pitches look appetizing coming in before they burrow their way into the bat handle at the point of contact.

Not surprising, Plouffe’s chase rate grew in June as well with the majority being swings at pitches inside off the plate. This expansion of the zone has led to weaker contact as well as a drop in walks. Possibly because of his determination to drive runners in, Plouffe’s walk rate suffered in this time as well. Dating back to May 21, he has drawn just one walk in 62 plate appearances.

To be fair, 30-plus plate appearances is not a real concern. It just takes a few decent at-bats to help pull a hitter out of the funk and the stretch will be forgotten. However, with the added issue of Joe Mauer’s lack of production in front of him, it has exacerbated the problem for the team overall. If the Twins expect to continue to battle for a top spot in the division, they will need Trevor Plouffe to re-calibrate quickly.