Parker Hageman

I, for one, welcome my new shortstop overlord.

I believe Gold Caretakers will receive a voice mail from John saying "Annnnnnd welcome.'

Having been on the national club circuit with some 16 & 17U players the last two years, I've had some interesting conversations about Minnesota talent. The two things that people for outside of the state (and usually in the warmer states) say that our teams really can hit and pitch. I think when you break it down, that's where the vast majority of the offseason development time is focused. Minnesotans can get into cages for swings and throw bullpens in gyms, field houses and warehouses. The downside is that the defensive talent is usually 12 months or more behind the warm-weather kids. They just get more reps at a younger age. It takes a while for the northern class to catch up. But the state has been known to produce dudes so more D1 schools are making a swing through the state to look at the high school talent whereas they wouldn't have just a few years ago.

Or Woodbury's Adam Mazur who had nine punchies in six for Iowa on Opening Day while chucking 97 mph darts. (can do this all day so many minnesota contributing across the country right now it's so much fun.)

Whoa whoa whoa whoa. No Will Rogers shoutout?

Dead inside.

North St. Paul native and Twins' minor league pitcher of the year Louie Varland recently did a Q&A with KSTP's Darren Wolfson during one of his offseason training sessions at Starters. https://kstp.com/sports-news/minnesota-sports/qampa-twins-minor-league-pitcher-of-year-louie-varland/ Hard not to root for this kid.

Parker Hageman and Dan Anderson visit CHS Field and attempt to catch a homer... with a beer in their hands. View full video

I think a bench coach adds a lot to the culture and the operations of a team. There was a good MLB Network feature on Derek Shelton from 2019 that demonstrated how valuable a coach can be to a manager. Does it effect the win-loss column much? Maybe. Maybe not. Being prepared certainly doesn't hurt.

This isn't to say that velocity doesn't help. Fastball velo plays. But more teams have recognized that more outs happen on non-fastballs. If you are going to miss bats and chase strikeouts, development begins to focus on movement.

TruMedia. Baseball Savant counts cutters as fastballs. TruMedia doesn't. Given the increased movement of cutters lately, I think that's more accurate to exclude them from the fastball pool.

I think the real question you have to ask is if fastballs even matter anymore. Most competitive teams have started to go away from fastballs. The Rays pitchers threw fastballs in just 43% of their mix. Twins were 49% (up from 43% from last year, thanks Joe Ryan). Dodgers, Yankees, Braves and Astros were all also under 50% fastballs thrown. The future of this organization is not fastballs.

Thielbar is almost a completely different pitcher this second time around. And his time with Driveline and the new pitching development staff with the Twins have unlocked a lot for him. This thread is from August 2020, but it still applies today. Driveline helped him improve his spin rates/spin direction so that the fastball and the curveball now have mirror spin at nearly 100% active rates. The Twins helped him activate more lower half muscles by staying in his glute longer during the delivery process (it's probably no wonder why he's able to generate a little more velo, especially late in the season, when he's not solely generating off his quad and arm). I think this year you also see a little bit better movements out of his top half as well. He get a bit more layback in his shoulders, aiding in that slight velo increase. Credit him and the S&C staff for working on that. He's also moved over to the third base side of the rubber this year, allowing for a more direct path to the plate. As someone with that good 12-6 spin, this provides the best route and maximizes that spin direction.

oh no evidence that i wore cargo shorts.