Jump to content
Our first free agents ranking has launched, click here to see the top 40+ names in free agency! ×
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

E. Andrew

Provisional Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    116

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by E. Andrew

  1. E. Andrew
    Great write-up.
  2. E. Andrew
    Duluth? Sorry, I had to.
  3. E. Andrew
    Good to see that our most generic building is so prominently featured.
  4. E. Andrew
    Thought of this when browsing some stats... Here is the Twins Thousand Game Club (with fWAR for those interested): [TABLE=width: 563] RANK PLAYER GAMES fWAR [/TD] RANK PLAYER GAMES fWAR 1 Harmon Killebrew 1939 59.4 [TD=align: right]10 Randy Bush 1187 1.4 2 Kirby Puckett 1781 44.5 [/TD][TD=align: right]11 Joe Mauer 1157 43.0 3 Kent Hrbek 1734 37.2 [/TD][TD=align: right]12 Roy Smalley 1148 20.5 4 Tony Oliva 1675 40.8 [/TD][TD=align: right]13 Michael Cuddyer 1138 12.9 5 Rod Carew 1634 57.0 [/TD][TD=align: right]14 Cesar Tovar 1090 21.9 6 Gary Gaetti 1351 25.5 [/TD][TD=align: right]15 Greg Gagne 1089 14.5 7 Justin Morneau 1247 19.3 [/TD][TD=align: right]16 Zoilo Versalles 1065 16.0 8 Bob Allison 1236 30.9 [/TD][TD=align: right]17 Chuck Knoblauch 1006 33.2 9 Torii Hunter 1226 22.9 [/TD] [TD] [/TABLE] Unless Jason Kubel (753 GAMES, AGE 31) or Delmon Young (497 GAMES, AGE 27) make a comeback, Trevor Plouffe (296 GAMES, AGE 27) is the closest to being added, as the only active Twins player with more than 250 games with the team. Is the next member of the Thousand Game Club already in the organization? (If so, who?) Or, is it a player to be named later?
  5. E. Andrew
    Edit: Hopefully even more succinct: Deduno has three pitches: Wild Fastball - Incredibly-slow (Back)spin Wild Change-up - Incredibly-Slow (Back)spin Curve Ball - Normal Rate of (Top)spin The fastball and change-up have extremely inconsistent spin angles, wherein a pitch can resemble anything from a four-seam to a cutter. On Saturday*, he showed that he can - likely deliberately - also throw these two pitches with topspin, in directions that are most often achieved with a knuckleball. *And in several games last year. _ _ _ Did this and the graph as quickly as possible, hopefully it answers the above... Based on his incredibly low spin rate on all pitches except the curve, it must be assumed that he has always (to some extent) 'pushed' the ball, as opposed to creating a 'normal amount' of backspin by rolling the ball off the fingers, the traditional baseball throw/pitch. This is odd, accounts for the erratic movement, and suggests a knuckleball-type grip. A curve/slider with topspin falls in the 0 to 90 degree range of spin angle for RHPs, 270 to 360 for LHP. This is easy to illustrate (once I had read a few papers on magnus force ); imagine you are the catcher with this graph in front of your mask. The ball is coming at you spinning in the given direction. http://i.imgur.com/0czG6Pe.png The graph is simply reversed (though the grid stays the same) for a LHP. Until Deduno (or a knuckleballer), I hadn't encountered a pitcher that consistently enters the 'dead zone' as illustrated above. The pitcher would need to somehow create topspin, and force the ball to break in the opposite direction from their curve/slider. The occasional odd 'sinkerballs' can track that way, the errant ball (typically a weird change-up grip) could slip out of the hand, the ball could be spit on, or they could be 'pushing' the ball with knuckle (figertip) grip. Based on the 70 or so Deduno photos I've looked at, the last seems the most probable. He's thrown this way in a handful of games in the last two seasons, but consistently on Saturday. Here's Correia. Again, a fastbal/change-up can 'slip' out of the hand and track a small amount of topsin. But the vast majority of his hard stuff falls between 90 and 270, backspin. http://imgur.com/YbbFUOP Kevin Correia, Minnesota Twins - PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile - TexasLeaguers.com I can't accurately speak to Deduno's future development / categorization. I have to guess that at the very least Cuellar, Anderson, Mauer, Doumit, and Hermann know about the weird spin.
  6. E. Andrew
    With the off-day, I'm about to watch this for the second time this year. To anyone who hasn't seen it, I highly recommend it. Half of the movie is about Sano, and the other kid's story is equally as interesting. Awesome use of 74 min. On Netflix Instant
  7. E. Andrew
    Notice anything weird about this [URL="http://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=media%2Fgettyphoto%2F2012%5C07%5C22%5C149049791.jpg"]photo[/URL]? [CENTER] [attachment=6348:3024.attach] ***[/CENTER] Samuel Deduno is off and running in 2013. He leads Twins starters in ERA and FIP, as well as opponent batting average, WHIP, and ground-ball percentage. But he’s well known for his unpredictable pitches, and without a full major-league season at age 30, they've held him back. How wild are they?[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] [CENTER][attachment=6347:3025.attach] [/CENTER] R.A. Dickey is the league’s best definition of “effectively wild". Here’s a graph of his pitches on Friday, primarily knuckleballs. At FanGraphs, [URL="http://sabr.org/latest/sheppard-tracking-ra-dickeys-knuckleball"]Drew Sheppard noted[/URL] that “the ideal knuckleball makes just 1 to 1.5 rotations (~150 RPM) between release and home plate, causing the drag on the ball to shift significantly mid-flight as the leading seam of the ball rotates slightly, resulting in unpredictable and uniquely sudden movement.” Not all of Dickey’s knuckleballs spin quite that slowly, but many do, and he’s averaging a respectable 935 RPM on the season (vs. 1600 RPM on his fastball, a good benchmark for the league). Spin angle helps to keep the hitters guessing. As the fingertips push “through” the ball, they roll either under the leather, creating a slight amount of backspin, or over, creating a small amount of topspin. On this graph, anything between 90 and 270 degrees represents backspin. The pitches outside that range have topspin. Here is a graph of Deduno’s 2013 season, prior to this weekend. I added a few notes on the application of spin angle. His non-curve pitches hardly spin consistently (and he’s credited with a “cutter” for that reason), but except for the occasional “errant change”, they have backspin, as a fastball and change-up normally do. [CENTER][attachment=6346:3026.attach] [/CENTER] Now here are two graphs from Saturday’s game in Seattle, a non-televised blackout in both Minnesota and Washington. [CENTER][attachment=6349:3027.attach][attachment=6350:3028.attach] [/CENTER] Please return your seat backs to their full upright and locked position.* Ignore pitch classification. On Saturday, Deduno threw a 90+ MPH pitch that frequently spun over the top, adding to gravity’s effect. His non-curve pitches averaged less than 550 RPM, and his change-up spun half as fast as Dickey’s knuckleball, moving at roughly the same velocity. Many of Deduno’s pitches approached that ideal "barely spinning" mark of 150 RPM. That’s essentially impossible with any traditional fastball/change-up grip. In July, his fastballs have averaged ~700 RPM. For a righty, a spin angle between 270 and 360 degrees means a ball breaking down, but in the opposite direction from their curve/slider. The numbers are incredible. Deduno has entered new territory. The PITCHf/x machine isn’t broken; this isn’t the first time he’s done this. He brought out the same pitch in a hand-full of games [URL="http://pitchfx.texasleaguers.com/pitcher/465679/?batters=A&count=AA&pitches=AA&from=4%2F1%2F2012&to=10%2F10%2F2012"]last year[/URL]. This time around, he met or set [URL="http://www.fangraphs.com/statsd.aspx?playerid=5285&position=P&type=2&gds=&gde=&season=2013"]season bests[/URL] in earned runs, strikeouts, WHIP, and ground-ball percentage. He looked** good, if not great, and he kept Doumit’s glove moving. One year ago today, [URL="http://twinsdaily.com/853-sam-deduno-his-crazy-fastball.html"]Parker Hageman introduced us[/URL] to Deduno’s fastball. He noted that “when asked about the possibility of being ‘effectively wild’... Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson joked, ‘Ask Mauer, he says it’s like catching R.A. Dickey.’” What’s Deduno throwing? It’s tough – if not impossible – to say. But it might be time to call it what it is. Notice anything weird about that photo? * [I]Fight Club[/I] reference. Hopefully I'm not losing anyone. ** Thank god for MLB.tv. View full article
  8. E. Andrew

    Call It What It Is

    E. Andrew posted an article in Twins

    Notice anything weird about this photo? *** Samuel Deduno is off and running in 2013. He leads Twins starters in ERA and FIP, as well as opponent batting average, WHIP, and ground-ball percentage. But he’s well known for his unpredictable pitches, and without a full major-league season at age 30, they've held him back. How wild are they?[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] R.A. Dickey is the league’s best definition of “effectively wild". Here’s a graph of his pitches on Friday, primarily knuckleballs. At FanGraphs, Drew Sheppard noted that “the ideal knuckleball makes just 1 to 1.5 rotations (~150 RPM) between release and home plate, causing the drag on the ball to shift significantly mid-flight as the leading seam of the ball rotates slightly, resulting in unpredictable and uniquely sudden movement.” Not all of Dickey’s knuckleballs spin quite that slowly, but many do, and he’s averaging a respectable 935 RPM on the season (vs. 1600 RPM on his fastball, a good benchmark for the league). Spin angle helps to keep the hitters guessing. As the fingertips push “through” the ball, they roll either under the leather, creating a slight amount of backspin, or over, creating a small amount of topspin. On this graph, anything between 90 and 270 degrees represents backspin. The pitches outside that range have topspin. Here is a graph of Deduno’s 2013 season, prior to this weekend. I added a few notes on the application of spin angle. His non-curve pitches hardly spin consistently (and he’s credited with a “cutter” for that reason), but except for the occasional “errant change”, they have backspin, as a fastball and change-up normally do. Now here are two graphs from Saturday’s game in Seattle, a non-televised blackout in both Minnesota and Washington. Please return your seat backs to their full upright and locked position.* Ignore pitch classification. On Saturday, Deduno threw a 90+ MPH pitch that frequently spun over the top, adding to gravity’s effect. His non-curve pitches averaged less than 550 RPM, and his change-up spun half as fast as Dickey’s knuckleball, moving at roughly the same velocity. Many of Deduno’s pitches approached that ideal "barely spinning" mark of 150 RPM. That’s essentially impossible with any traditional fastball/change-up grip. In July, his fastballs have averaged ~700 RPM. For a righty, a spin angle between 270 and 360 degrees means a ball breaking down, but in the opposite direction from their curve/slider. The numbers are incredible. Deduno has entered new territory. The PITCHf/x machine isn’t broken; this isn’t the first time he’s done this. He brought out the same pitch in a hand-full of games last year. This time around, he met or set season bests in earned runs, strikeouts, WHIP, and ground-ball percentage. He looked** good, if not great, and he kept Doumit’s glove moving. One year ago today, Parker Hageman introduced us to Deduno’s fastball. He noted that “when asked about the possibility of being ‘effectively wild’... Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson joked, ‘Ask Mauer, he says it’s like catching R.A. Dickey.’” What’s Deduno throwing? It’s tough – if not impossible – to say. But it might be time to call it what it is. Notice anything weird about that photo? * Fight Club reference. Hopefully I'm not losing anyone. ** Thank god for MLB.tv.
  9. E. Andrew
  10. E. Andrew
    Notice anything weird about this photo? [ATTACH=CONFIG]5008[/ATTACH] *** Samuel Deduno is off and running in 2013. He leads Twins starters in ERA and FIP, as well as opponent batting average, WHIP, and ground-ball percentage. But he’s well known for his unpredictable pitches, and without a full major-league season at age 30, they've held him back. How wild are they? [ATTACH=CONFIG]5009[/ATTACH] R.A. Dickey is the league’s best definition of “effectively wild". Here’s a graph of his pitches on Friday, primarily knuckleballs. At FanGraphs, Drew Sheppard noted that “the ideal knuckleball makes just 1 to 1.5 rotations (~150 RPM) between release and home plate, causing the drag on the ball to shift significantly mid-flight as the leading seam of the ball rotates slightly, resulting in unpredictable and uniquely sudden movement.” Not all of Dickey’s knuckleballs spin quite that slowly, but many do, and he’s averaging a respectable 935 RPM on the season (vs. 1600 RPM on his fastball, a good benchmark for the league). Spin angle helps to keep the hitters guessing. As the fingertips push “through” the ball, they roll either under the leather, creating a slight amount of backspin, or over, creating a small amount of topspin. On this graph, anything between 90 and 270 degrees represents backspin. The pitches outside that range have topspin. Here is a graph of Deduno’s 2013 season, prior to this weekend. I added a few notes on the application of spin angle. His non-curve pitches hardly spin consistently (and he’s credited with a “cutter” for that reason), but except for the occasional “errant change”, they have backspin, as a fastball and change-up normally do. [ATTACH=CONFIG]5010[/ATTACH] Now here are two graphs from Saturday’s game in Seattle, a non-televised blackout in both Minnesota and Washington. [ATTACH=CONFIG]5011[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]5012[/ATTACH] Please return your seat backs to their full upright and locked position.* Ignore pitch classification. On Saturday, Deduno threw a 90+ MPH pitch that frequently spun over the top, adding to gravity’s effect. His non-curve pitches averaged less than 550 RPM, and his change-up spun half as fast as Dickey’s knuckleball, moving at roughly the same velocity. Many of Deduno’s pitches approached that ideal "barely spinning" mark of 150 RPM. That’s essentially impossible with any traditional fastball/change-up grip. In July, his fastballs have averaged ~700 RPM. For a righty, a spin angle between 270 and 360 degrees means a ball breaking down, but in the opposite direction from their curve/slider. The numbers are incredible. Deduno has entered new territory. The PITCHf/x machine isn’t broken; this isn’t the first time he’s done this. He brought out the same pitch in a hand-full of games last year. This time around, he met or set season bests in earned runs, strikeouts, WHIP, and ground-ball percentage. He looked** good, if not great, and he kept Doumit’s glove moving. One year ago today, Parker Hageman introduced us to Deduno’s fastball. He noted that “when asked about the possibility of being ‘effectively wild’... Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson joked, ‘Ask Mauer, he says it’s like catching R.A. Dickey.’” What’s Deduno throwing? It’s tough – if not impossible – to say. But it might be time to call it what it is. Notice anything weird about that photo? * Fight Club reference. Hopefully I'm not losing anyone. ** Thank god for MLB.tv.
  11. E. Andrew
    Among the many things that make baseball and hockey my favorite sports is the fact that there is very little incentive to tank. Especially in baseball, the draft is a crap-shoot. Yes, talent is more likely to be found at the top, but in my opinion, you never have to be concerned with whether or not your favorite baseball or hockey team is trying to win.
  12. E. Andrew
    Spot on. And, you'd obviously bench below-average minor-leaguer X for show boating. You need to correct idiots. But, then Sano does the same thing.... if you don't hand out the same punishment, you set a dangerous precedent. He's now above the rules, and the organization. You want him show up at optional workouts in the big leagues? Make him behave like everyone else now.
  13. E. Andrew
    This is the target, every time. No one in the picture knows where it's going. I bet Mauer actually gets a kick out of it, nice change of pace from the pure strategy approach of Correja and Pelfrey.
  14. E. Andrew
    I was laughing about that. According to pitchf/x, his 4-seam vs. cutter usage is just all over the board... I think he just winds up and hurls some kind of hybrid as hard as he can haha. Edit: Here are the numbers...
  15. E. Andrew
    I apologize for starting a thread for such a narrow topic, but am I missing something here? I was browsing through MLB Leader Boards, and noticed that Diamond's curve ball is the only one in the league with a 'positive' vertical movement. That is, it resists gravity, necessarily indicating that it has backspin. Regardless of whether or not PITCHf/x is categorizing his pitches correctly, his pitches do not include a breaking-ball. He is throwing this 'curve' 25% of the time, and it has worsened in each of the past three years. Thoughts? Correct me if I'm wrong...
  16. E. Andrew
    Interesting...
  17. E. Andrew
    He makes a good point.... Mackey: There?s almost no way the Twins can get much value for Morneau | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins
  18. E. Andrew
    I live in Minneapolis and I've never been there haha. It's pretty good?
  19. E. Andrew
    True, still weird though haha.
  20. E. Andrew
    Not much you can say about just one game, and pitchfx isn't perfect, but for what it's worth, Gibson went to almost 80% fastballs with Hermann behind home, easily his most. He got just 7 of 23 first-pitch strikes, so maybe they were working around the plate a little more? Anyway, his gave up his first two home runs, but both were solo and he didn't give up much otherwise.
  21. E. Andrew
    “With media the way it is, internet, Twitter, everything, it gets so much more hype than what actually goes on. You might sit there and no one is calling you back. You may say we’d love to trade. We've got guys or we’d like to trade for your guy and you do not get a call back. They literally do not call back. It’s strange. There is a lot of work that actually goes on to prepare for nothingness.” I've always thought that was one of the more interesting parts of reading through older Twins history, especially the Griffith ownership years. There were certain teams we had lots of trades with, others, nothing. We'll never understand the ins and outs of every relationship, but it's funny to think that when you hear a trade rumor or suggestion, it may have literally no chance of happening, because the relationship is not there. I think we also forget how much work ends up being 'wasted'. Imagine a guy like David Price, or our situation with Santana. Once it becomes clear that they aren't coming back, there's probably a year+ of working/researching potential trade partners. Just crazy. Anyway, great article.
  22. E. Andrew
    You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=2114-Watch-Him-Grow!-Kyle-Gibson-s-Early-Results
  23. E. Andrew
    In a lost season, baseball fans take what they can get. Most get by on hope, and for the Twins, looking toward the future has begun as early as ever. Before elbow surgery, Kyle Gibson's name often topped lists of reasons to keep the faith. Though he's stumbled out of the gate, he has the tools to work at the top of the rotation, and he has the freedom to develop on-the-job. Here are five areas where Gibson can improve as he gains confidence in his pitches and trust in his catchers and coaches, beginning tonight. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] [TABLE=width: 357] [TD=colspan: 4]CONTROL WITH RUNNERS ON BASE[/TD] (Plate Apps) AVG/OBP/OPS [/TD] SO/BB With RISP Gibson (34) .367/.412/.845 [TD=align: right]1.50 Twins .291/.356/.798 [/TD][TD=align: right]1.57 AL .259/.336/.736 [/TD][TD=align: right]1.89 [/TABLE] Traditional theory assumes most batters swing more freely with men on, looking for RBIs. But when pitching to them, Gibson leaves too many balls over the middle of the plate instead of consistently working the corners. Some may be mistakes, but others are untimely efforts to stay ahead of the batter. He spends little time "watching" runners back to the bag, instead working quickly after receiving the sign. While it's wise to trust base-stealing threats to veteran defenders, Gibson often looks too eager to rush the pitch and make up for the mistakes that put men on. Statistically, pitching performance shouldn't change dramatically with runners on base. Continuing at a natural pace and keeping the ball down and away from the batter - especially with his slider - will not only keep batters off-balance, but should induce ground balls and lead to more missed bats. [TABLE=width: 357] [TD=colspan: 4]TAKING WHAT'S EARNED[/TD] After 0-1 Count [/TD] Gibson (46) .275/.348/.648 [TD=align: right]3.33 Twins .241/.279/.638 [/TD][TD=align: right]5.08 AL .226/.265/.612 [/TD][TD=align: right]6.36 [/TABLE] After taking an 0-1 lead in the count, pitchers should gain a sizable advantage. Though Gibson is getting first pitch strikes at nearly the 60% league average, he converts them to outs far less often than his peers. After grabbing two strikes - an even greater lead - Gibson has a modest 2.20 SO/BB, compared to an AL average of 5.26. Some of the fault lies with Mauer, but that's to be expected. As both gain confidence in their game plan and pitch selection, strikeout rates will improve. SLIDER COMMAND Baseball America ranked Gibson's slider as the best in the Twins' organization after each of the last four seasons, but it's been his least "valuable" pitch in his short time in the majors. In his home collapse against the Yankees on July 4th, he relied heavily on the breaking ball and off-spead pitches (both 22%, vs. 56% fastball). Ten days later he found relative success in New York by dialing in on his command and increasing his power pitches to 71% (vs. 17% breaking balls and 12% off-speed). A lot of the damage on the slider is due to tough luck (.400 opponent BABIP), and it's still been his best pitch in producing swinging strikes. Expect to see usage rate increase as he gains confidence. Combining it with his controlled fastball and quality change-up will produce a powerful out-pitch and lead to a more impressive K-rate. [TABLE=width: 357] [TD=colspan: 4]GAME PROGRESSION[/TD] [TD=colspan: 4]Gibson vs. Batter[/TD] 1st PA (36) .303/.333/.727 [/TD][TD=align: right]3.00 2nd PA (36) .467/.556/1.122 [/TD][TD=align: right]0.50 [TD=colspan: 4]Twins(Starters) vs. Batter[/TD] 1st PA .307/.356/.823 [/TD][TD=align: right]1.86 2nd PA .285/.343/.775 [/TD][TD=align: right]1.68 [TD=colspan: 4]AL(Starters) vs. Batter[/TD] 1st PA .258/.315/.729 [/TD][TD=align: right]2.82 2nd PA .261/.323/.749 [/TD][TD=align: right]2.34 [/TABLE] Of course, hitters tend to improve slightly each time they face a pitcher in a game, but opposing batters have crushed Gibson after their first time up. Mauer has seen enough of the AL bats to have a feel for their strengths, but as noted previously, he hasn't seen enough of Gibson to embrace new combinations. His release points are consistent, and his velocity and movement look good. As Gibson's confidence develops and reliable pitch varieties follow, he should regain some ground. [TABLE=width: 357] [TD=colspan: 4]HANDLING LEFTIES[/TD] Gibson [/TD] vs. RHB (44) .231/.318/.626 [TD=align: right]3.00 vs. LHB (58) .380/.448/.908 [/TD][TD=align: right]0.33 Twins (RHPs) [/TD] vs. RHB .281/.331/.745 [TD=align: right]2.45 vs. LHB .285/.346/.791 [/TD][TD=align: right]1.68 AL (RHPs) [/TD] vs. RHB .251/.308/.705 [TD=align: right]3.16 vs. LHB .261/.330/.754 [/TD][TD=align: right]2.10 [/TABLE] Simply put, these splits are far too extreme to last. Gibson wouldn't be here if lefties could hit him at this rate. He's faced very well-coached (if only traditionally-potent) AL East lineups three times, and there are always adjustments to be made on the first go-around in the big show. He's a first-round draft pick, and he's earned his trip to the big leagues. Fear not. There’s been plenty of change across the club, and plenty of losses to match it. But the light is growing at the end of the tunnel. Though Twins fans will work to forget 2013, they can remember watching their future stars grow. Here's hoping Kyle Gibson becomes one of them.
  24. E. Andrew
    I put together my first article since letting TwinsAquarium.com* drift away in '08. Trying to get back into it. Let me know what you think, or just discuss the topic... TL;DR? Tonight, watch Gibson A) pitch with runners on, after getting the first strike, C) improve his slider, D) face batters the second time, E) handle lefties. Watch Him Grow! Kyle Gibson's Early Results - Blogs - Minnesota Twins News & Rumors Forum *Gleeman introduced it, and Howard Sinker and Over the Baggy linked to it among others, but if anyone remembered it, I'd be shocked...
  25. E. Andrew
×
×
  • Create New...