Twins to Bring Back Matt Borgschulte as Hitting Coach

well, he's from outside the organization, but since he was previously with the Twins I'm sure some people will be furious about this decision.

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Interesting, but I find coaches and assistant coaches and all the other influences are really hard for a fan to judge.

In which case, here's an example for the commentariat: If David Popkins arrived in 1978, the year after Rod Carew batted .388 (1.019 OPS), what would be different in the '78 Carew under his tutelage from the real one (.333 and .853) in terms of technique? Apply the same to Borgschulte if you wish, and incorporate direction from Falvey. Asking a lot, but I appreciate specifics.

For me the most important point is whether the orgs hitting philosophy will change. If not I am not sure it matters who the coach is. I will say that Falvey has generally done really well with his coaching hires. 

It's impossible to know if this is a good move or not...yet They probably need to change the philosophy for the entire organization. I hope he knows what the heck he's doing, and I wish him the very best of luck. 

Lots of good young hitters with the Os. He already has relationships and has worked with some of our young guys. That seems like a plus. 
 

Os 16th with RISP and Twins were 18th so that doesn’t fit with what Falvey called out as far as situational hitting. 
 

I do like that he has experience as a hitting coach. 

13 hours ago, ashbury said:

I find it very interesting that such relatively young people are given the reins at the major league level, in preference to someone with decades of experience. 

Interesting, yes, and a bit unconventional too. Or at least it would have been an "outside the box" type of move a decade or two ago. Seems like the coaching ranks are getting younger and sometimes with coaches that have little or no experience playing at the MLB level. I have no real opinion as to whether this is a savvy hiring or not, I just hope he clicks with the players and we start getting more hits and runs across the plate. 

Tough assignment with this bag of clowns. 

17 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Interesting, but I find coaches and assistant coaches and all the other influences are really hard for a fan to judge.

Or even get excited about ...

2 hours ago, Danchat said:

Seems like he is fairly qualified. There was quite a debate about Popkins when he was hired, and it seems the doubters were right, given that he didn’t seem qualified to be a major league hitting coach.

I had my doubts about Popkins when he was hired. Popkins had a sparkling HR production on his resume, so I thought he'd be just an HR-driven coach that fit into Falvey's HR-crazed hitting philosophy. I was assured that he wasn't & I've seen that come to fruition by what he has done helping hitters to get away from that approach & how quickly he had turned around the team early this season, from HR focused ABs to having good ABs.

On the other hand, Borgschmite was let go because of the team's high drop in offense in the 2nd half. Popkins was Falvey's sacrificial lamb to take the fall for his faulty hitting philosophy. IMO Borgschmites is worse than Popkins. Another Falvey's yes-men to support his philosophy.

15 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

They made a pretty significant organizational philosophical change last offseason. After all the strikeouts the previous year, they cut down that number significantly this year. And, talking to some guys in Cedar Rapids and elsewhere, that was voiced throughout the organization. I think the big area of focus this year needs to be on the situational hitting and understanding. 

 

I really hope so, Seth. & I hope that they don't fall back to the old philosophy. Baldelli said that he got after the players for not following "the plan". That's what I hate, vagueness, what is "the plan"? Being vague we can't evaluate what he's saying, he expects us just to blindly accept what he's saying without understanding exactly what he's saying.

On 10/14/2024 at 7:23 PM, Seth Stohs said:

They made a pretty significant organizational philosophical change last offseason. After all the strikeouts the previous year, they cut down that number significantly this year. And, talking to some guys in Cedar Rapids and elsewhere, that was voiced throughout the organization. I think the big area of focus this year needs to be on the situational hitting and understanding. 

 

I believe what you are saying, but I don't see results match the pretty significant organizational philosophical change statement? It did on the Twins they cut down their strikeouts by over 20% (1654 - 2023, 1306 - 204) which is a difference of 348, but between Gallo and Taylor that is 272, removing then brings it down below 10% reduction.

The minors?

2024, 2023 - difference

AAA 1372, 1459 -6%

AA 1276, 1320 - 3%

A+ 111, 1275 - 13%

A 1173, 1253 - 6%

And one argue the biggest difference in A+ and AA was due to the fact ERod left high A and went went to AA and was hurt for a large portion of the year.