Parker Hageman

When it comes to run prevention, the Minnesota Twins have discovered that marginal improvements across a variety of areas has led to substantial gains. They have experimented with catching set-ups, even hiring umpires in spring camp to test these strategies against. They reexamined their infield play, adding new warm-up techniques to their routines in order to improve the defense. They added biomechanic systems to measure posture, direction and angles, hoping to improve velocity and command with the slightest tweaks. And so on. Recently they found a new use for an old trick.Admittedly, pulling the infield in is nothing new. With no exact origin story, the alignment likely began when the first runner reached third base at Elysian Fields. As an organization, the Minnesota Twins have hired people to run their baseball operations who question the game’s status quo -- Why do pitchers need to establish their fastballs when a breaking ball might be their best pitch? Why do catchers need to squat on two legs? Playing the infield in early in the game is another traditionally held no-no, but why? Part of the long-standing rationale is the tendency to surrender extra hits. Cheap hits at that. Baseball Info Solution recently looked at all of their infield positioning data going back to 2015. According to their research, in the face of the infield drawn in, hitters posted a batting average 70 points higher on ground balls and low liners as those balls found more seams and carried just out of reach of the defenders. From 2015 through 2019, hitters posted a .296 average with a normal infield alignment while they hit .366 average with the infield in. Like the defense shift, nothing seems to agitate traditional baseball people more than when a weak grounder squibs through an opening where a defender should be. But here’s the rub: according to BIS’s study, runs scored declined significantly with a drawn in infield. Under normal conditions, that runner on third would score 63% of the time yet with the infield playing in, the runner scored just 49% of the time. That’s a significant swing. The Twins are not alone in pushing the boundaries of the game, especially in this regard. In 2017, depending on the situation, the Boston Red Sox looked to cut off the runner at third early in the game. “We try to tell our guys defensively, ‘Let’s not give away easy runs. Let’s make the other team execute. If they don’t execute, let’s knock down lead runners,’” Red Sox third base coach Brian Butterfield told the Providence Journal’s Tim Britton. “It changes a guy’s hitting approach. With all the infielders back, he just has to stand in the middle and play pepper with the second baseman or shortstop and you’re guaranteed a run.” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli echoed this sentiment in this season when he told reporters that the teams’ decision is based on “trying to cut down runs and giving yourself an opportunity to cut down runs as opposed to giving them up and simply playing the infield back.” As BIS’s research previously showed, the odds indicate that teams would indeed save runs. So why not take advantage of them? A runner on third will score on a hit to the outfield no matter what. While a normal depth infield might increase the range of where an out can be made, it also means that a run would likely score regardless. Because the Twins have confidence in their batted ball data and their starting pitchers’ ability to execute pitches, they believe they can maximize coverage with the infield pulled in. When the Red Sox were determining whether or not to move everyone in, there were several factors at play in their decision-making process. For instance, is the person hitting fast and capable of stealing a base? Sacrificing a cheap hit and a run might result in a runner in scoring position quickly. Is there a runner on second? If that runner is fast, a cheap hit through the infield might score two. Under those circumstances, it might be better to play it conservatively. Data suggests that Baldelli tended to be more aggressive in 2020 when it came to those situations. There is no publicly available data that shows exactly how many times the Twins opted to play the infield in early in the game but if you were to examine Statcast’s infield starting position, you can see that there was a big effort in moving their infield in when runners are on third and less than 2 outs. Looking at just the middle infield positions, both fielders started on average over 10 feet closer to the plate than they did in 2019 (and more so than 2018 and 2017). Download attachment: MIN Infield Alignment 2017-2020.png Compared to the rest of baseball this season, the Twins were second in the depth their infield started in those situations. In the first three innings, only the forward-thinking Tampa Bay Rays positioned their infield closer on average in runner-on-third/less than 2 out situations. Their shortstop would begin precariously close to a hitter at 113 feet. Meanwhile, the Twins would start Jorge Polanco, et al at 121 feet, the next closest in. In all, the Twins had 21 instances where there was a runner on third and less than 2 outs. A review of those plays shows that among those 21 balls in play, there were only three plays that 1) the infield was in and 2) managed to keep the runner from scoring where a normal defense would have conceded the run. A more robust analysis would be required to determine how many of those bleeder/cheap hits gained during the shift resulted in extended innings. That being said, saving three runs in a shortened season is not nothing. Focusing on reducing easy runs might be one of the reasons why the Rays (67) and the Twins (69) were second and third in baseball at allowing the fewest runs in the first three innings in 2020. On its own, bringing the infield in to cut off a handful of runs might not seem that significant but if you look at it in the aggregate -- combined with the other elements -- it becomes another piece of overall run prevention. Tiny improvements. Big gains. That’s the secret sauce. Click here to view the article

MLB’s Brain Drain: The Minnesota Twins are hiring but it would seem that the industry as a whole might be in trouble. However the next several years play out, it appears that the baseball industry is in a liminal space. Front office gigs, long glamorized, have become less desirable to those with options. The individuals who remain in the industry feel underpaid, undervalued, and overstressed. The most conscientious are concerned that an already exclusive industry is going to build larger gates, and become more homogenous and bland because of misplaced priorities. The industry, then, is in a bad place -- and it might remain there for the foreseeable future. "A lot of people call it their dream job," the former senior analytics member said. "This was one of those things that makes you realize that a dream job sometimes is still a dream." Practice Analytically, Perform Intuitively: Training with data will not impede a player’s ability to improvise during play. Seeing the errors in how people intuitively think about the golf swing made Bryson question how other parts of the game were played. Having majored in physics at college, he operates like a scientist. He subscribes to Charles Dickens’ famous line from Great Expectations: “Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.” Where other golfers guess why they’re struggling at the driving range, Bryson brings two military-grade launch monitors so he can quantify his swing path to the tenth-of-a-degree. Where other golfers use standard grips, Bryson uses the world's largest commercially available grips so he can reduce wrist cock in his swing and hold the club with his palms instead of his fingertips. Where other golfers have a half-inch length difference between every iron, all of Bryson’s are cut to 37.5 degrees, the length of a standard 8-iron. Where other golfers change their putting technique based on how they feel that day, Bryson’s implemented a system called vector putting: he uses math to compute the break and determine how the ball will roll along the grass. Where other golfers hit 7-10 degree drivers, Bryson copied the world long-drive champion and put a 5.5 degree driver in the bag. Where other golfers use a 45-inch driver, Bryson’s experimenting with a 48-inch one. Bryson showed that a determined contrarian, armed with the right data and a definitive plan, can upend conventional wisdom and prove that there’s a better way to do something. Gophers Baseball PACK Mentality: The University of Minnesota’s offense has been good. That’s owed partially to a cultural mindset. One of the signature components of Gopher Baseball's offensive approach is the PACK Mentality, centered on four primary characteristics: performance, aggressive, consistent and knowledgeable. The goal of the PACK Mentality is to turn individual at bats into a team approach. As a unit, the offense is more effective than if at bats were attacked solely as individuals. "The idea of this is like a pack of wolves hungry to hit," said Raabe. "No matter who is on the mound, we have a sense of 'no fear,' because you have eight other guys behind you if you fail… Everyone has an individual role in the PACK system." {snip} The PACK Mentality also drives Minnesota's success in these areas of emphasis, as the situational scenario of the game is different every time a player steps into the box. This requires absolute buy-in from every member of the offense, allowing each hitter to adapt to the unique situations that occur as they arise. "We are all three-hole hitters that have many tools at our disposal in order to get whatever job done that needs to be done," said senior catcher Jack Kelly. "At the very least, be a tough hitter to pitch to by having quality at bats with lots of hard contact and good two-strike approaches." Stock Up On Average Players ($): Some teams have found success by loading a roster with “average” players. Amid the welter of modern stat tools, one idea often gets buried: The difference between a great or near-great player and an average or slightly above-average player is enormous in terms of glamour, fan appeal, all-star and even Hall of Fame consideration. But the difference — on the field, in run differential and in the standings — often just isn’t that big. The Mad Genius of Eddie Van Halen: RIP. The Van Halen family—father Jan and mother Eugenia, plus Eddie and Alex—left Holland for the United States in 1962; Eddie was 7 years old and spoke very little English when he arrived in Pasadena, California. Jan Van Halen was a musician—a working one, when he could find a gig. He played clarinet and saxophone, and in their teens, the boys would often join him in his various wedding bands. Eddie was an introvert, an inventor: He boiled guitar strings (for elasticity), dipped his pickups in hot paraffin, cut vibrato bars in half, transplanted the neck of one guitar onto the body of another. One early El Dorado was something he called the “brown sound”—a distortion that was thick, sleek, organic, and unrelenting, but that didn’t blow up your amp. He pursued this brownness with endless mad-scientist tinkerings. “He tried aiming the amp at the wall,” writes the Van Halen biographer Ian Christe in his peerless Everybody Wants Some, “stuffing it with padding, and covering it with a plastic hood before discovering that he could overdrive it at a lower volume if he starved it for voltage using a Variac variable power supply.” Later, he would house a delay unit inside the hollowed-out body of a decommissioned U.S. Army bomb, to create what Christe calls a “big metal ordnance-cum-reverb-chamber” that he would face onstage while playing “Eruption.” Telling A Great Bedtime Story: Some excellent advice for the newer parents out there. “Listening to the story without the benefits of the illustrations requires the child to picture the characters and the events in their own mind,” said Rebecca Isbell, Ph.D., an early childhood education consultant and professor emerita at East Tennessee State University. “They are creating the story for themselves. They are listening to it, and as they do they’re turning on that movie in their head.” These mental movies are powerful — in her research, Dr. Isbell has found children understood (and retained) more of a story they were told out loud than having the same story read to them. “I think that’s something that gets lost with reading,” she said. “You’re focused on the words and the phrases, not the deeper meaning of it.” When you tell a story, there’s no book to focus on, for you or your child, so you can use gestures and eye contact to add drama, suspense and intrigue. Podcast Recommendation: Gaynor Strength & Pitching

This is a good reminder that home runs are still king no matter the scenario. That being said, what we saw between the Astros and Twins is a good reminder that you need to have another offensive tool in case the home runs disappear.

On Tuesday Josh Donaldson was consuming playoff baseball when the Twins’ third baseman unleashed a tweet that read “Shifts in MLB playoffs are continuing to hurt teams!!” Not one but two exclamation points. Donaldson had presumably just witnessed this play, an Austin Riley grounder with eyes that dribbled right through the spot where a straight-up second baseman would have played. And, if that second baseman had a pulse, it would have easily been converted into the inning’s first out. Instead, the loafing baseball reached the outfield grass, Riley reached safely and the Braves launched a 6-run assault on the Marlins that inning, giving Atlanta a one-game lead in the NLDS. The Miami Marlins were, in fact, hurt by the shift.A few hours later, Donaldson, whose current team shifted 41.3% of plate appearances (7th most frequent in baseball), expanded on his viewpoint saying “pitchers are getting hurt because of these shifts. Hitters are taking advantage of it. Love to see it.” In the simplest form, the goal of hitting is to not make an out. The next level would be to not make an out while gaining as many bases as possible in one at bat. By deploying the infield shift, teams are playing the percentages on a hitter’s batted ball tendencies while also tempting that hitter into a B-swing - one that does not do as much damage as it tries to direct a pitch to a certain area of the field. Teams in the field will concede the occasional single in the short term in exchange for more outs and fewer extra base hits over the long haul. Over the course of a 162 game schedule, this alignment typically favors the defense. Recency bias likely plays a factor in Donaldson’s sentiments toward the shift. In a failed shift deployment, it becomes very noticeable (and usually highlighted by the broadcast crew) whereas the ground ball at a well-positioned infielder or the results of a hitter taking a less than optimal swing does not get amplified nearly as much during the telecasts. Of course, from an offensive perspective, there are certainly times where teams would benefit from a well-placed hit rather than gambling on a gap shot. In Riley’s case, the Braves were down by a run in the seventh inning. While a blast would have quickly tied it, simply reaching base would ensure that the top of Atlanta’s order - Ronald Acuna, Freddie Freeman and Marcell Ozuna - would get licks with a runner on base. So Riley inside-outs a 97-mile per hour sinker and starts a rally. Josh Donaldson is not going to keep an opinion to himself. He’s very outspoken. He also just finished watching the Houston Astros dismantle the Minnesota Twins’ infield shifts. In Game 1, with a 1-0 lead and runners on first and second, the Twins used a modified shift, pulling the infield around to the left against George Springer. On the mound, Tyler Duffey spins his knuckle-curves at the right-handed hitting Springer hoping to get him to over-pull into the shifted Marwin Gonzalez at third and Jorge Polanco at short. Springer, however, stays in line and drives the pitch back to the left side of second base where the shortstop might play. This ties the game 1-1. Now, it comes off the bat at a hundred miles an hour so even if positioned a few steps over toward that hole might not be enough for Polanco to corral it. And Polanco was in a spot where a bulk of Springer’s ground balls were hit. So you can’t fault the logic. But this goes to show the approach the Astros are seemingly taking: hit toward the empty real estate. Sure, Springer could have used his A-swing. He could have tried to drive the ball and put up a crooked number. He does not. He stays within himself and moves the line along. Aside from the terrible baserunning that ensued resulting in the third out at third, it was a fine piece of hitting. In Game 2, more shift-beating ensued. With two out and two on in the fourth inning, Jose Berrios was tangling with the left-handed hitting Kyle Tucker. The infield was swung around the right, with shortstop Jorge Polanco on the right side of second base and Marwin Gonzalez, playing slightly in at third to guard from the bunt, as the only body on the left side. On a two-two pitch, a very well located fastball by Berrios at that, Tucker keeps his hands in and inside-outs the ball to exactly where a straight-up shortstop would be playing. Tucker’s swing was in protect mode but he undoubtedly saw the gaping hole on that side of the field. He didn’t need his best swing, he just needed a good enough swing. The Astros would take the early lead. Then there was the ninth inning encounter between Taylor Rogers and Alex Bregman. With a runner on first and no outs, Rogers throws Bregman an 0-1 fastball on the outer edge of the zone. It is left up and Bregman punches it right toward the vacant left side. The ball bounces at least five times as it travels into right field. Michael Brantley on first, alertly heads to third. In a previous life, this would have been a double-play ball and the Twins might get their chance to tie it with a one-run game in the bottom of the ninth. In the modern era, Luis Arraez can only watch from 20 feet away as it bounds into the outfield. This was an intentional approach by Bregman. He wasn’t protecting the plate or fighting anything off. He had what amounted to an automatic hit available to him and he took it when Rogers failed to execute his location. When the dust settled, the Astros hitters were 7-for-15 on ground balls facing the infield shift from the Twins. Some were legit hits regardless of the alignment, others were borderline. Similarly, the Astros have since picked apart the Oakland A’s defensive shifts as well, going 7-for-20 in those situations in the ALDS as well. It seems to be a premeditated strategy. Given that the Astros abused the Twins’ defensive alignment, which was viewed up close and personal by the injured third baseman, as well as the Braves’ march over the Marlins in Game 1 which was ignited by a shift buster, it’s no small wonder that Donaldson sees the shift as something that hurts pitching. In some regards it does hurt pitching but for most teams not playing the Houston Astros, defensive shifts have been fairly effective in the postseason. While the Astros have hit .444 on grounders facing the shift, the rest of the teams in the postseason have hit .180. For better or worse, the Minnesota Twins built their offense around the home run. Like the NBA’s increase in three-point shots, favoring the long ball has its advantages over the course of a season. As Earl Weaver said, the home run equals instant runs. That being said, throughout the year the Twins struggled to get others on base and score runs through other means. While they finished third in the American League in total home runs, they also finished 18th in overall runs scored. In short, the team’s offensive toolbox only had one tool. And this became painfully apparent during the Wild Card series. Because the games were close, the Astros could use the take-what-they-give-you approach rather than chucking up three point shots. The Minnesota Twins weren’t undone by infield positioning so much as they were outmaneuvered by the Houston Astros and their strategic bat control. Click here to view the article

The Minnesota Twins' Wild Card Series Game 1 starter doesn’t have a 100 mile an hour fastball and, even if he did have one, he probably wouldn’t throw it either. Kenta Maeda doesn’t need it. His specialty in 2020 has been a one-two punch from his slider and his split-changeup, keeping hitters twisted in knots as the ball bends in any direction, in any place, at any time.When Maeda landed in Minnesota, the organization had him go through the tweaking process. As The Athletic’s Dan Hayes recently detailed, the Twins had him work on some minor mechanics improvements, such as keeping his chest closed longer in order to gain additional depth on that changeup. They also determined that he could stand to fire fewer fastballs. And add a cutter. The veteran right-handed embraced everything. Keeping hitters off-balance with a slew of sliders and changeups was a trait from last year but this season he has taken that to the nth degree. He comes at hitters with non-fastballs 72% of the time which is the highest among all qualified starters and well above the league average of 43%. Beyond just increasing the use of secondary stuff, Maeda also altered the situations he would deploy those pitches. With the Dodgers Maeda would throw his changeup to lefties and his slider to righties. This year the Twins convinced him to mix in a little bit of both. Now hitters have to anticipate off-speed pitches breaking in either direction. Ultimately Maeda shaved off at least 100 points off of his OPS by inserting one additional option for hitters to consider. But it is his use of his split-change that has made it such an effective pitch in 2020. The results on Maeda’s changeup are significantly improved over the previous year. According to ESPN/TruMedia’s data warehouse, hitters whiffed on 27% of their swings -- the highest mark in baseball -- up from 20%. The 41% strikeout rate on his changeup is a big increase over his 2019 rate of 27%. And in 2020 no qualified pitcher struck out a higher percentage of hitters on their changeup than, you guessed it, Kenta Maeda. Without resorting to throwing more numbers at you, we can all agree that it is indeed a splendidly lethal pitch. While the Twins have made changes to his macro use of the pitch, there is also an interesting increase in the sequencing. Maeda likes to double-up on his pitches, frequently throwing two in a row of the same type. No one came at you with two consecutive sliders as much as Maeda did this year. If he threw a slider that wasn’t put into play, 54% of the time he would do it again. Similarly, if he hit you with a change, odds were he would come back with it 42% of the time (5th highest among starters). The latter has been a game-changer for him and one of the reasons he amassed 38 of his 80 strikeouts on that pitch. He recorded 17 of those strikeouts when going back-to-back with his changeup. It’s not just that he’s throwing two consecutive changeups and that alone is stifling hitters. It’s the cat-and-mouse bait game that Maeda has perfected. He will set up the first changeup on an edge or just off the edge of the zone where it could be a called strike or, if the hitter swings, it will either induce soft contact, foul or swinging strike. At two strikes now and firmly in the driver’s seat, Maeda throws his next changeup in a very similar tunnel only to have it dive or dart just a bit further out of the hitter’s reach. The hitter sees what appears to be a borderline pitch just like the last one and is determined to defend the zone -- only this pitch is in the dirt or running the other way from the bat. Here’s what all those words look like in technicolor form. Download attachment: Webp.net-gifmaker (7).gif What this shows is the location of his change in one-strike and two-strike counts. With one strike, Maeda’s changeups linger over the southern border and with two-strikes it’s now decidedly not there. Some examples: In facing Pittsburgh’s Josh Bell, Maeda tries to throw him a 2-strike changeup after a fastball. Maeda leaves this one up a little higher than he wants and Bell fouls it off. But with a 1-2 count still, Maeda has him set-up for a change that tunnels off the one he just was able to make contact with only to fall well below the zone. Download attachment: Maeda vs Bell.gif In Maeda’s battle with Detroit’s Niko Goodrum, Maeda gives him a changeup that is below the strike zone but then drops the two-strike one even further below that one. Download attachment: Maeda vs Goodrum.gif While the sequence has been really good against lefties, Maeda has not been afraid to do the same to right-handed hitters. In his matchup with Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun, Maeda goes with a beautiful changeup that lands just inside the corner but gets a swing-and-miss out of Braun. Again, Maeda throws the next changeup along the same path only to have much more depth than the previous one. Download attachment: Maeda vs Goodrum (1).gif In the final example, returning to a left-handed matchup against Chicago’s Yoan Moncada, Maeda throws a changeup just off the plate that Moncada is gracious enough to foul into Ryan Jeffers’ upper thigh. No matter, Maeda dispatches him with another changeup out of reach. It would be interesting to find out what accounts for this. Is this old-fashion gut pitching from Maeda, aware that he has a hitter on the line and by dangling a sweet morsel just a little bit further out of reach he can get a strikeout? Or is this work of the pitching analysts in the front office who have shrewdly calculate this outcome from billions of terabytes of data? Maybe a little of both? There are multiple reasons why Maeda has had a career year in 2020, not the least of which is that he is a really good pitcher with amazing feel for his entire arsenal. But he also is now teamed with an organization that has the ability to maximize a pitcher’s ability. Click here to view the article

It's time.It has been a strange year but the time has come to build this dream together. Here’s to a long and fruitful postseason. Click here to view the article

Welcome to this week’s What I’m Reading. This is a collection of interesting or insightful articles that you might enjoy. The Brilliance of Brad: Facing American League-favorite Oakland in the opening round of the 2002 playoffs, the Twins got off to a horrendous start. Radke issued a one-out walk in the first inning to Scott Hatteberg and Pierzynski’s error on Eric Chavez’s two-out single would ultimately lead to two runs scoring. The Twins got a run back in the top of the second inning but more disaster awaited in the bottom half. They allowed a harmless infield pop fly to fall in with two outs, allowing a run to score, then third baseman Corey Koskie booted the next play. “(Radke) was ticked off,” Koskie said. Pierzynski rarely saw Radke get frustrated. That wasn’t the case in Game 1. “He never got mad at anything but he came in and started screaming at us,” Pierzynski said. “’Wait a minute, Brad is mad? We must have really screwed something up.’” Steady as always, Radke found a way to work around it. He retired 10 of the final 13 batters he faced, completing five innings. Though he left with a 5-3 deficit (only one of the runs was earned), Radke set the tone for an all-time Twins comeback. The Porta Potty Park: Ah, the temporary outdoor stadium that never was. Minnesotans had been staying away from the Dome in impressive numbers. It had become a cliché for former Twins attendees to say, “It’s not just the losing. We don’t get enough nice summer days to waste them by going inside the Dome.’’ Clouser decided passion could be rekindled by giving the fans a chance to see the Twins play outdoors. Ellerbe Becket was recruited to design a ballpark with bleachers holding 25,000. The grass at Bloomington’s Kelley Farm site would be manicured. Temporary restroom facilities and concession areas would be constructed … this only a handful of Killebrew home runs from where the fans last saw an outdoor home game for the Twins at Met Stadium in 1981. Voit’s Growth As A Hitter: Health is part of the explanation for Voit’s season, but Pilittere said he’s focused on working more efficiently and in preparation for a game-by-game basis. Instead of taking pregame swings by volume, he’s facing machine pitching that simulates the pitchers the Yankees expect to see on a given night. If the starting pitcher is a slider-heavy left-hander, he’ll take swings in preparation for that. Data-Driven Decisions: Sam Bornstein, a University of Iowa baseball’s analytics team member, has joined SimpleSabermetric’s Jake Stone to contribute to that website. In his introductory post, he demonstrates how technology is improving an organization’s player development decisions. While some may view the introduction of these technologies as bad for the game, that is certainly not the case. These technologies give us a quantifiable method to make data-driven decisions. Using technology to aid in the player development process is a lot like using a calculator on a math exam - without it you may be able to get to the right answer, but with it you can be sure you're making the best decisions possible to get to that answer quicker. This example is directly applicable to today’s game as well. The coaches who have been in the game forever have an immense amount of valuable experience. However, as more and more technology is introduced we are able to rely more on data to make our decisions than previous experiences. Matthew Wolff’s Unorthodox Golf Swing: He’s a golfer who swings the club like a baseball player. And he’s 18 holes away from defying logic all the way to a historic major championship. {snip} Wolff and DeChambeau are at the vanguard of a generation of golfers who hit the ball far. Really, really far. They worry about the consequences later. “There’s a lot of holes out there that maybe people would try to hit it in the fairway or maybe take the safe play because it is a U.S. Open and they know that pars are a good score, but I don’t really like to think of it that way,” Wolff said Saturday. {snip} Before swinging, Wolff shimmies his hips like he’s readying himself for a dancing number. Then when he draws the clubhead back, he takes it unusually far outside. It sets up for an unusual follow through. But the result is clear: Wolf creates an extraordinary amount of power that few on tour can rival. Here’s a video breakdown of Wolff’s swing. While not necessarily the same, you can see some of the same elements in some baseball swings. For instance, Byron Buxton’s hips and legs using the ground to generate force. It’s amazing to me how much golf as a sport has embraced using technology and breaking convention if the numbers back it up, which feels different when watching baseball broadcasts and hearing announcers lament the “launch angle swing”. While Wolff is a good story, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau transformed himself into one of the greatest long ball hitters on the tour today -- through science, technology and intent. What’s interesting is that Dechambeau developed his own powerful swing derived from a 45-year-old golf textbook, not unlike one of today’s hitter’s refining their craft using Ted Williams’ seminal book. Building Mentally Strong Players: Footballers can tend to mentally rehearse failure daily. They can remember the mistakes and the poor plays in detail. They can learn helplessness in the quiet of their mind. They may need to deliberately shift these inner pictures to their best games, best moments, best plays. This tweet from sports psychologist Dan Abrahams reminded me of something pitching coach Wes Johnson did for Jose Berrios last year. LAST: What I'm Listening To (Spotify Rec) What I'm Listening To (Podcast Rec)

Ain't that the truth. My nap time consists of eating too much and just lying down as I lose consciousness. Other than that, we're basically the same people.

Welcome to What I'm Reading. This is a collection of interesting or insightful articles I’ve read this past week. Behind Nelson Cruz’s Maniacal Preparation: From his Seattle Mariner days but a reminder of how much work the 40-year-old Cruz puts in to maintain his elite level of play. Nap time can vary, but it’s daily. “If we play at home, I like to do it after BP,” he said. “If we are on the road, I do it before BP.” Post nap will include a dip in the cold tub for about five minutes, followed by some time in the warm tub. Cruz’s on-field workout is another process. He doesn’t walk into the cage and try to bomb homers. There’s a plan to his batting practice, which includes driving the ball to the opposite field. Sure, by the end, he’s launching balls over the fence at distances his teammates only wish they could reach. But he’s become a more complete hitter by showing this discipline in batting practice. Though he rarely plays in the field anymore, Cruz will still take fly balls on most days because he still wants to play in the outfield at some point. He’ll even take ground balls in the infield to keep his body active. “It’s fun for me,” he said. Kansas City Royals Pitching Development Has Changed: “We’re not going to draft a guy, have them come in and be like, ‘We need to do this, this and this,'” Stetter said. “The biggest thing is, you have to trust your eyes. If a pitch is working, the hitter is going to tell you. The hitter is going to let you know if your stuff is good enough. And if it is, you’re going to keep going with it. And if you get to Double-A and the hitters start hitting it, you’re not getting swings and misses, we’ll know what kind of changes we might make to that pitch to make it better.” {snip} “A lot of times, if you’re having a guy throw a four-seam, and it’s got a two-seam tilt, it might not always add up that he should be throwing all four-seams,” Stetter said. “There’s some stuff with Rapsodo and Edgertronic camera where we can sit there and make a decision on a guy, where, it might be more beneficial if he throws more two-seams, or it might be beneficial that he throws more four-seams. With new technology, you can tailor it to the guy. Certain grips play better to horizontal-breaking sliders.” Joe West Never Missed A Call: "This is what people don't understand: When an umpire has a bad night, he goes back and looks at it," he said. "There has to be a reason you missed the call. Three ways you can miss a call: lack of concentration, lack of positioning, lack of timing. The Denkinger play at first base [in 1985 when the] Cardinals lost the World Series to the Royals. Don Denkinger overhustled on that play. He took himself out of position to see that play. Is that a bad thing that he hustled? No. But he put himself in the wrong spot. He's one of the best umpires the American League has ever had. He's remembered for that call. That's not fair. There's no batting average for performance for an umpire. They grade you, yes. But when you miss some, you can't go out and hit a homer. You have no recourse to get that back." 99-Year-Old Roger Angell On Modern Baseball Statistics: I think some of the new stats are useful. Good baseball played by Major Leaguers is so far beyond us—it’s the hardest game in the world to play well. And what underlies [the stat revolution] is, I think, a conscious and effective way to get some of this back, to say, “We know better. We know what the batters are doing. They don’t know what they’re doing.” It’s understandable, but it doesn’t add to the joy of the game for me. I’m not very statistical by nature, so I could be wrong about this. And I know a lot of people now use these stats and talk about them with interest. But also, it’s part of the huge alteration of the game itself. People tilting their swings and swinging for homers and striking out in huge numbers. This is a gigantic change in the game. I think home runs are OK, but on the whole, I prefer a triple. Are We Teaching Wrong? Mr. Hirsch also takes issue with grade schools’ focus on “skills.” Whether it is imparting “critical thinking skills,” “communication skills” or “problem-solving skills,” he says such instruction is a waste of time in the absence of specific knowledge. He describes the findings of the National Academy of Sciences on the subject of the “domain specificity of human skills.” What this means, he explains in the new book, “is that being good at tennis does not make you good at golf or soccer. You may be a talented person with great hand-eye coordination—and indeed there are native general abilities that can be nurtured in different ways—but being a first-class swimmer will not make a person good at hockey.” He cites the “baseball study,” conducted by researchers at Marquette University in the 1980s, which found that kids who knew more about how baseball was played performed better when answering questions about a text on baseball than those who didn’t understand the game—regardless of their reading level. The conventional response in education circles is that standardized tests are unfair because some kids are exposed to more specific knowledge than others. In Mr. Hirsch’s view that’s precisely why children should be exposed to more content: Educators “simply haven’t faced up to their duty to provide a coherent sequence of knowledge to children.” What I'm Listening To (Spotify Playlist) What I'm Listening To (Podcast Recommendation)

This is from the July series against the Yankees last year. The amount of video I watch for research for these posts is appalling. The amount of time versus amount of ROI I get for each post is laughable. If I were to tell my wife, she would probably pack the home up and leave. Rest assured, there was a lot of due diligence performed when using this clip (for the record, these two swings were chosen because they were of the same pitch type/speed in the same zone in similar counts). From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, nothing really changed in his left-side mechanics. Second, as far as his power numbers, yes, early season was much better but it was not like the power went away like it did in 2020. He still slugged over .400 in every month from the left side except in August (366) which was the only month he didn't hit a home run in (although he had 3 doubles and a triple). I think it is fair to ask what prompted the changes. It's possible that the late season swings felt less comfortable and he decided to make some changes (the most notable difference is that his average dropped about a 100 points between May and September). However, we are deeper into the season now and it begs consideration of possibly adjusting to his previous mechanics. The Twins have the answers to that question. Keep an eye on Polanco these next few weeks and see if anything changes.

Been about 2 months now. Those guys should probably get on it.

Among the many breakout talents in the Minnesota Twins’ 2019 lineup, Jorge Polanco’s emergence as a top of the order bat who could not only make contact but put a charge into the ball was refreshing. That season his .355 weighted on-base average was the seventh-highest among qualified shortstops -- even outperforming division rival Francisco Lindor. But so far in 2020 that power source just hasn’t been there.Polanco takes the majority of his plate appearances from the left side and that’s where he put up most of his power numbers in 2019 -- including 16 of his home runs, 30 of his doubles and six of his triples -- so this analysis will focus on that batter’s box. Now, admittedly, we are still in the early-to-mid stages of players getting their feet underneath them. Polanco has yet to have 100 plate appearances as a left-handed hitter this season. Still, in those appearances, the 26-year-old has only collected three extra base hits (one double and a pair of home runs). In 2019 he slugged 519 from the left side while he is posting a 354 mark in 2020. It would be easy to dismiss this as a sample-size issue and say, just wait, he’ll get hot. Except there are some data points that suggests there is something more to this stretch of offense. First, let’s be clear that Polanco has not changed anything about his approach from the left-side. If you look at all of his plate discipline and swing decision metrics -- chase rates, miss rates, swing rates, etc -- they are almost identical to the year before. Second, this year has been a really, really messed up. There was spring training. Then there was nothing. Then there was like a long weekend to be ready to face live pitching again. It is hard to say how a hitter would respond to that. But also the year has been messed up in general. All around. There’s a raging pandemic. An economic crisis. The government more or less said UFOs exist and we didn’t even flinch. Hell, the Timberwolves just received the number one overall draft pick. The globe is probably off its axis and we’re all sliding into an invisible black hole so spending time worrying how one human swings a stick at a thrown projectile should be the least of our concerns. The most notable difference in the two performance sets is Polanco’s hit types and his hit locations: His ground ball rate has jumped from 31% in 2019 to 44% in 2020. His line drive rate is down to 21% from 31% in 2019. He is not pulling the ball in the air as much as he did a year ago. In 2019 he would pull the ball in the air 34% of the time while this season it’s down to 23%. Finally, his exit velocity is down from 89 to 84 on average. What stands out the most to me among that data soup is the decline in the rate of aerial pulls. That’s not actually a term anyone uses but aerial pulls sounds like it has gravitas. Frankly, he is not pulling the ball in the air with authority this season. While I’m certain the spouting of random numbers is compelling as hell, you should also take a gander at his spray chart here to see how different it looks...in dot form. Download attachment: Polanco Spray Charts.png Last year he collected 47 hits including nine home runs, 15 doubles and two triples when pulling the ball in the air (or aerial pulling, if you will). This year Polanco has amassed just three hits (two home runs and a double) when pulling the ball in the air from the left side. To summarize the situation: As a left-handed hitter, Polanco is attacking pitches the same as last year but he’s just not able to elevate them with any power to his pull side. It is obvious that something is off and I’m not so sure it has anything to do with the UFOs. When you look at a side-by-side of Polanco’s swing from last year versus this year you will start to see where things are getting a little loose for the former All Star in 2020. There are three key differences: The first is where he starts his hands. In 2019, his hands were below his shoulder level. This year the hands are at or above his shoulders. Next is the position of the bat. In 2019 he held it much more vertical (upright) while he holds the bat more with more tilt now. The last piece is how much the barrel wraps behind his head now compared to a year ago as he moves into the launch position. This year the hands are much further back in the launch position (toward the catcher) and have to travel further forward to the contact point. The barrel turns wider behind him instead of the tighter turn you see in 2019. Similarly, with the bat now more prone instead of vertical, his swing plane is also slightly altered. What ensues are armsier swings with timing issues that lack the same punch as a year ago. This would result in less power and more grounders. The interesting part of this development is that Polanco has been a vocal proponent of using video to break down his swing. “I’m a guy who used a lot of video last year,” he told The Athletic’s Dan Hayes. “I think everything at-bat, I used to watch me to see what I’m doing good and what I’m doing bad, to make an adjustment from there.” As someone who is used to dissecting his swing on video, he would surely notice this difference. Clearly if he had a side-by-side of these last two seasons he could see the strengths and weaknesses. So it begs the question, is he doing this intentionally? Does he feel more comfortable with the new swing? There is no question of his ability to make contact. Since the start of 2019 Polanco has maintained an 82.9% contact rate (21st among all qualified hitters). He can put the bat on the ball at an elite level. But what is lacking is his ability to drive it with luster like he did last year. It is fairly evident that if Polanco needs to review the two swings and decide if he wants to make the necessary adjustments to regain the pop he had in 2019. Click here to view the article

wouldn’t it be something if players came here to read about what to do. wait, maybe that’s what happened in 2016.

Why is requesting a "subtle yet very significant update that honors and reflects the team’s players and its fans from different backgrounds" a false sense of need? Inclusion is a very real need. As I read Crutchfield's statements, he is using that as an opportunity for a discussion on what that looks like, not a condemnation on the existing logo. Nobody said that the logo was offensive. Crutchfield never mentioned being offended about the logo or the logo itself being offensive. In fact, he said that he has "always loved Ray Barton’s original ‘Minnie and Paul’ logo design" in his statement. He provided updated version of the logo he provided on his Facebook page. In addition to being a seamless transition, the Black person on the St. Paul side not only provides a level of diversity to the logo, but it could also serve to honor Roy Campanella who became the first African-American to play in the American Association when he joined the Saints in 1948. There is certainly room for both in this game. The sport honors Jackie Robinson one day a year by having every player wearing 42 or black and white jerseys. Some teams choose to use Negro League uniforms on turn-back-the-clock days. This is imagery. You can have both discussions about how images are perceived AND work toward actionable changes. Again, no one said the logo was offensive. Still, we know that former owner Calvin Griffith said 'I'll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don't go to ball games" and while he was making that decision, he was likely deciding on logos and branding. The 1961 designed logo could have been a reflection of that mindset -- or it could have just been an misguided reflection of the state's demographics at that time. Either way, it does not take much for an organization to reflect on that past and that future. Baseball's audience is overwhelmingly white. According to Bloomberg in 2019, only 9% of the television-viewing audience is black. I cite James Clear's Atomic Habits a lot because of the main points he makes in his book is that small changes can have significant impacts later on. If making small change to the logo could help improve the perception of the organization to more people, it would be foolish not to take it into consideration. There is A LOT more that needs to be done to grow the game in that regard, to be sure, but making small strides when possible should be on the table. It may seem like a minor thing to us, but the impact could be felt down the road. Finally, just to reiterate, there are many reasons to consider making changes to a logo but let's be clear here and understand that no one is outright offended by this logo. That is not a part of the conversation.

Average exit velocity probably isn't a good measure because when you dig in you'll see there are two different stories. Overall, yes, he's hitting the ball 89.8 in 2020 and was at 91.8 in 2019. The reason it's not far off this year is because his exit velo on ground balls is much higher this year than last year while the EV on balls in the air is much lower. So the average EV looks similar. Last year when he hit a line drive, it average 98.9 while this year it's averaging 91. So the "good contact" EV is much lower than the "bad contact". So "bad luck" really isn't an answer in this case. I posted this last week on Twitter but it demonstrates where his swing has been deficient so far this year: He was a monster at hitting pitches up last year. Pitchers are still giving him fastballs up that he's just swinging under. You can see how he was coming down at the ball in 2019 but is trying to come up at it this year. This may be just a symptom of minimal reps heading into the season. Feels like he could use some high-spin fastball machine work or doing some of the high tee drills that Nelson Cruz loves. The last thing I'll add is that since the second half of last year, Garver has broadcasted everywhere that he goal is to pull the ball. That's not a bad goal, to be sure. Brian Dozier always said the shortest way out of the park down the left field line. Given that opponents are just throwing stuff away at him, it's likely they are trying to get him off that game. Trueblood touched upon that today too but Garver may have to make that adjustment of being able to drive that outer-third fastball into center-right-center instead of his usual pull mindset. Thanks Derek for the discussion.

Velocity in this case comes from movements of the lower half, not like accelerating or decelerating the arm intentionally. If pitchers try to do that -- in either direction -- they tend to have more issues. I don't think the Twins staff would advise him to take anything off or make changes to those movements now. It would definitely be great if they worked 100% on day one but there's still some issues. I think they understand that it is a process and it takes time to master.

This is a very good analysis. I should clarify something however because I may have not described what is happening with his hips well enough in the adjustment. When I said his hips are now more open, I'm referring to the static alignment prior to foot strike and not their rotation. So it's not an opening-timing thing, it's a directional piece. His hips are now open (if you are looking at a pitcher overhead and drew a line through his hips, think somewhere between this \ and this | instead of /) striding out into foot strike before he starts rotating into the lead leg block. Last year Berrios demonstrated a much more pronounced toe push off of his back foot. This movement in general keeps pitchers from maintaining their hip line with the plate. When pitchers are able to drive from their full foot more, they tend to have better direction home as the hips fire forward. The Twins and Wes Johnson have used this to improve several of their relievers (Duffey, Littell, May) and got more consistency and velocity out of them. When a pitcher closes off the hip alignment, the position of hips can decrease the transfer of kinetic energy which zaps velocity and command. We saw this last year with his inability to locate a glove-side fastball. For some pitchers the crossfire move isn't inherently bad. Brewers' reliever Freddy Peralta uses it to his advantage but if you watch his alignment, his hips are still in a better position with the plate than Berrios was last year. Peralta is crossfiring but he's also in a good position. All that said, there may be other rotational parts of his mechanics that are causing some of the issues you've outlined. One of the big issues for him last year was chest rotation and rotating that too early. That was one cue that was constantly preached to him (keep your chest closed as long as possible). I would not be surprised to learn that the biodata still shows he's opening that up too quickly which would lead to command issues. We should not forget that he's also working on his arm action as well which could also lead to timing issues as he's trying to sync everything up. My personal thoughts on this is that he is much improved mechanically. This is the right direction for him. But incorporating new movements into the game environment is challenging. Several years ago Kyle Gibson revamped his mechanics and arm action during an offseason at Florida Baseball Ranch and it took the first half for it to feel comfortable. And that was with a normal spring training and season. The velocity component of my post may have gotten a little overemphasized but that's one of the products of the improved movements. The other *should be* command. Gibson came back to Minnesota in 2017 with the new mechanics and needed the first half of the season to feel comfortable but his second half and 2018 were very solid -- strikeout rate went up, walks went down. I think we'll see him settle in more after getting the necessary game reps to feel comfortable. For Gibson, he told me in spring training a few years ago that that was about 10 starts. So it's quite possible it could take this entire weird season for Berrios. Good thoughts.

I don't think I've once said velocity is more important that location. I don't understand this black and white stance on the issue.

I think what has happened this year is just the opposite. The Twins/Berrios are trying to incorporate more four-seamers. In his first start, he fired a lot of those against the White Sox but switched back to the two-seamer when he wasn't able to elevate the other pitch consistently enough. This 0-2 pitch against Edwin Encarncion is a prime example of that. Garver wants it up and it ends up middle-middle (and fouled instead of banging off seats in the outfield). Last year when he threw his four-seamer he threw it in the upper third of the zone 44% of the time. This year it is just 25%. What I thought was interesting about the start against the Royals in that Avila was calling for the four-seamer down in the zone on the corners in 2-strike situations instead of targeting above the zone. He did throw some good ones in those situations but most were fouled off, not chased at or crushed when he missed his spot by 2 zones. So far he's allowed 8 extra base hits this year and 7 of those have come on his four-seamer. The takeaways of the GIFs should be not be a loss in movement. He still has an incredible amount of horizontal run in his four-seamer. It's got 4 inches more of run than the average four-seamer whereas a year ago it only had 2.1 inches of movement. This year's sinker is actually running more and (to Steve's point) may be a bit harder for him to command but he's also getting more swinging strikes on it and throwing it for strikes overall more. Another -- and final point -- about those two examples, one thing that Berrios struggles with a lot last year was hitting the glove side of the zone consistently. You'd see him trying to hit an inside target to a lefty only to have it run back into the middle. That's one thing that the poor hip alignment did was keep him from hitting that area well. Overall, I believe Jose Berrios has better stuff this year than last year. He just needs to figure out what would make that arsenal most effective and execute. The dude has a hell of a lot of drive and want to win.

The notion that the “focus on velocity is overblown” is not accurate. Velocity is one of the most significant keys to success. It’s not everything, to be sure, but it certainly isn’t an overblown factor. Again, I agree with you that Berrios needs better command and part of that may be due to the shutdown and late start to the season but both things — need more velocity and better command — can exist in the same space.