Willihammer

Ben Revere doesn't swing and miss often. So he doesn't reach many 3 ball counts, and what follows below can be taken with heavy salt. Still, if there is meaning in his small sample of 3-ball data, then Ben Revere's high contact percentage allows for absolutist decisionmaking at the plate in order to maximize on-base percentage. Observe, Ben Revere is already a patient hitter: http://i.imgur.com/tJLMP.png But Revere puts balls in play at such an efficient clip, relative to the no. of swings he takes, that he doesn't see enough 3-ball counts to draw any walks. If you carry out the 62% strike % (which includes swinging strikes, but to be conservative with estimates I will use that figure), then Revere would see 84 3-0 counts per 1000 PAs (conveniently, Revere sits at 1000 PAs currently). By comparison, Span sees fourty-three 3-0 counts/1000 PAs. Again, assuming the red light stays on for 3-0 counts, that works out to 52 walks per 1000 PAs just by Revere having a red light on all 2-0 and 3-0 counts. Accounting for a full .050 points of OBP. Give him the red light on all 3-1 counts, and his OBP jumps another .022. But, how would Revere's batting average fair, when the pitcher throws a strike on 2-0 and 3-1? http://i.imgur.com/FrbfC.png Like most hitters, Revere struggles in 2 strike counts (except full count). But Revere's ability to put balls in play is so elite, that he rarely gets into such counts. In 1000 PAs, he has see just 151 counts, of 02, and 210 counts of 1-2. By comparison, Span sees 180 counts of 0-2 and 271 counts of 1-2. He just doesn't miss the ball in 0-strike and 1-strike counts, to his detriment sometimes. Thus, Revere needs to be given hard red lights in order to increase his OBP and turn him into a long term serviceable leadoff hitter.

If you listen to his interviews on Rays baseball, maddon frequently mentions groundball and fly ball tendencies, and generally gives more interesting answers to anything he's asked. Depending on different estimates, his shifts are good for anywhere between 4 to 10 wins per year.

Who is obfuscating? I am placing the source of the problem in mechanics, you are mystifying it and making armchair psychological diagnoses. Can we end this now? http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-12/news/sns-rt-bbo-twins-team-reportsxa66e6a1-20120512_1_minnesota-twins-target-field-major-league It's absolutely insane to think that the Twins had Liriano for a half dozen years and never bothered to check out if there was a difference in his delivery that changed his success rate against major league hitters. I don't even know how to debate that point. It's ludicrous. You may recall, since it was only a couple months ago, that Liriano returned to the rotation and was a new man for a good 6-8 weeks. Which would validate my point: that it all begins and ends with Liriano's mechanics.

Right, Cooper said Liriano's aiming too much for the corners. Which is where the catcher sits. Does Cooper want him to aim at the mitt? If so, what is he talking to Liriano for, he should be telling A.J. The truth seems to be, that Andy and now Cooper do want Liriano to aim for the corners, because they don't want his pitches to go down the middle of the plate and get nailed. And they don't want to burn the calories needed to fix Liriano mechanically, so he continues to display the same glaring flaws start after start going back two years now. No, I don't believe the coaches are going over mechanical flaws in bullpen sessions, certainly not to the depth or specificity that we get from any of Parker's write ups. There's no evidence of that at all by their comments.

Nothing mechanically, its that matador. Let's get a priest over there then, to exorcise it out of him. This has to be maddening for Liriano. If he is a spaz, and no one's provided no indication that he is, but I would understand why, if he was. Can you believe that a guy whose best pitch is a slider, who throws 92-93 and tops out at 96, would go out there trying to strike people out? That's the correct goal to have anyway! Here's an idea: work with Liriano to that end. Encourage the strikeouts, by fixing the mechanics, so that he can throw strikes. Its that matador in him. Unreal.

It is nice to see a Twins pitcher throwing curveballs in "change up counts."

An accute lesson, no doubt. Certainly its not that he may be opening his front side to early. His body definitely isn't outpacing his arm. He's not finishing too high or losing his balance somewhere along the way. Surely there's no exercises or practices that might improve his delivery, or mental tricks that might help. Nope, he's just not throwing strikes and he should know better by now. That's on him, I agree 100%. Preposterous.

If you're going to label someone as mentally spazoid, you should have something to back it up with besides just, he struggles to throw strikes. That sounds like a non sequitor to me.

I do wonder how even our own Parker can consistently find specific weak points in a player's swing or delivery that the coaching staffs seem to miss. No, I wouldn't assume Andy/Vavra/Cooper had already spoken to a player about it. Certainly they do a good job hiding those points in their comments to the media, instead saying things like Boy, I bet that was really helpful.

If I had to guess, it would be for headbutting potato head last n ight

Are you saying he is uncoachable?

A better comparison would be, if your fielder can't make the throw to first base, to coach him more specifically than merely repeating, "make the throw to first base," and instead explain where in his throw he is going wrong, and find a way to correct it.

Butters: Rock on, man Perdomo: Tienes que luchar por tu derecho a la fiesta

I'm not trying to be difficult but it is frustrating when this assumption is made over and over, that pitchers do not appreciate the damage walks lead to, until their pitching coach explains it to them. Liriano's struggle isn't a validation of PTC. Liriano struggles because his mechanics are unsound. Andy, and now evidently Cooper, have failed to correct his mechanics, for whatever reason they haven't gotten through to him or been creative enough in their methods. The driving defense of pitching to contact is that it leads to more IP's. Where is the evidence? The leaders of IP every years are the ones who keep both walks and balls put in play to a minimum.

This is the outsized legacy Radke has had on the organization. Radke's mechanics were very sound. The picture in OP's article shows why his elbow never broke down, and his command was impeccable. It is all mechanics. If you put 3 inches and 50 pounds onto Radke's frame, you have Justin Verlander. The delivery is almost identical.

Better coverage but he's still vulnerable to the outside pitch. I'd really like to see him snuggle up to the plate like Willingham.

Bloop here, bloop there. Dribbler from a changeup in the fifth to tie the game. That's contact pitching for you. 3 whiffs all night. Also, take it with a grain of sale because the strike zone was lousy, but Hendriks' breaking balls had a higher strike percentage than his fastball. 4 seam strike%: 52.63 change: 94.74 slider: 58.82 curve: 57.14 2 seam: 54.76

Here is another possible comp: Bret Gardner. 9 HRs in 1700 minor league PAs (5 in low-A) to 5 for Revere (same PAs). Revere drew half as many walks, but struck out half as much. .776 OPS to Revere's .787. 157 SBs to 160. At the MLB level, Gardner saves better than 30 runs/year playing LF. Revere (small samples) saves 15 runs/150 games, playing all positions. However the Yankees didn't give Gardner full time duty till he was 26 years old. He is 29 now and his window for elite speed is about to close. Speed doesn't age as well as power. And Span will be 29 next spring. Revere will be 25, his window for elite speed is wide open for the next 4-5 years.

The point is, you can't say "our guys can't get strikeouts" when you are encouraging them to get outs in 2 pitches. Its impossible to know what a pitcher is capable of unless you give them a longer leash.

Again I ask, where is the evidence that pitching to contact enables longer outings? Looks to me like the league leaders in IP every year tend to be high strikeout, low walk guys.

I suspect if Parker did a comparison of Liriano's mechanics, it would show that LIriano's delivery was more sound in 2010 than in other years. I don't think its an effective coaching strategy to pound into a guy's head "throw strikes" instead of making specific points about where a pitcher's mechanics need to be improved. If Andy was making those points, he failed to get them through to Liriano.

Yes, contact is the operative word. As Anderson says above, if you are aiming for an out in the first 2 pitches, then you are trying to have your pitches hit. As opposed to throwing additional pitches with the aim to get a strikeout and take BABIP and luck out of the equation. Look at Silva's career. His three lowest k-rates are as a Twin. Its impossible to say what the strikeout ceiling is for our guys unless they are allowed to aim for them instead of aiming for contact.

Strikes are good, esp. early in the count, and walks are bad. I and the rest of the baseball world agree. Contact is good, that is where I disagree with PTC. The Twins, the poster child for the PTC theory, lead baseball in contact. I am not so quick to assume this is 100% the result of below average talent, and not a philosophy that has been employed for years. Indeed, 3 of the top 10 SP's in contact rate, going back to 2002 (min 400 IP) are or were notable Twins Blackburn, Slowey, and Silva. These are "organizational" guys. I'm curious if you or anyone has evidence that contact reduces pitch count? According to the previous table (small sample), Twins were 1st for two years running in P/IP, yet only middle of the pack in P/IP (while allowing the greatest number of bases). A strikeout averages 4.8 pitches, with a standard deviation of only .15. Compare to the Twins league leading 3.73 p/PA over the last 2 years, adjust for a BABIP of .303 (3rd worst), and you have on average, 4.87 pitches required to get the first out via contact only. Factor in double plays, and you're talking roughly 4.5-4.6 pitches per out. Clearly the savings in pitches and increase in innings pitched, if there is a correlation at all there (there is evidence that the correlation is actually an inverse one: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/7/26/3145695/jordan-zimmermann-and-pitching-to-contact) - clearly it doesn't outweigh the bases and runs you will give up in the process. So instead of preaching PTC, blaming guys who struggle to throw strikes on their lack of appreciation of the PTC approach, the Twins might be better served focusing on the mechanical issues like, in Liriano's case, his balance. To get them to throw strikes, and get ahead, but with the aim at putting guys away via strikeout.

BABIP scales inversely with velocity and k-rate, and gb rates scales positively with velocity. HR/FB rate scales inversely too. You can't assume the BABIP stays constant while the approach changes to pitch to contact.

Liriano wasn't a marginal talent, he has swing and miss stuff. why did they tell him to pitch to contact? Was Andy trying to get an 08-09 Nick Blackburn out of him?