Parker Hageman

On Tuesday afternoon the Minnesota Twins introduced the most expensive free agent in the organization’s history. Outside on the scoreboard, high above the team’s dormant field, a graphic splashed welcoming Ricky Nolasco to Twins Territory. At the press conference cameras rolled, questions were lobbed and Nolasco (with his impressively manicured beard) sat between general manager Terry Ryan and his agent, Matt Sosnick, having hopes pinned on him that he will help dig the franchise out from the bottom of the division. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] New uniform, smiles, handshakes, photo ops. Ryan spoke to Nolasco’s workhorse pedigree, his ability to miss bats and his character. His agent compared him to the muscle cars the pitcher loves to collect. Media members peppered him with inquiries ranging from his thoughts on the move to the American League to if the taste of the postseason with the Dodgers whet his appetite for more playoff action. When the song and dance ended, I tapped Nolasco for a quick sidebar on his pitching style. Based on research conducted at the beginning of the offseason, I asked Nolasco if his 2013 success coincided with his increased frequency of pitching inside to opponents. “I think it is a big part of any starting pitcher’s game,” Nolasco answer, reciting pitching wisdom imparted from grizzled pitching coaches to pitchers for generations. “I think you’ve got to pitch inside and open up the outside part of the plate for later on in the game. That’s always the process you want to do as a starting pitcher.” Hard in, soft away. Live to pitch another day. That is the mantra of pitchers everywhere since the dawn of the game. However, a few seasons ago Nolasco and his coaches with the Marlins noticed he had been drifting away from this technique and hitters were able to extend their arms, a sure sign that pitches were further off the hitter’s belt and more in the swing zone. That is when he made a minor change. Maybe it was simply intended to be a placebo effect to raise his awareness, but Nolasco, at the behest of his pitching coach, shifted a half-foot on the rubber toward the first base side. “One of my pitching coaches in Miami, Randy St. Clair, was the one who suggested it,” he offered. “Obviously it has been a big positive influence for me and my pitching style and a big change helping me get back to where I should be able to pitch numbers-wise.” The results were noticeable. From 2011 to July 2012, Nolasco held a 4.76 ERA with a hardy 1.40 WHIP. Following the change, he has had a 3.71 ERA with a tidier 1.23 WHIP. “[st. Clair] told me a lot of the times when I was getting in trouble and getting hit was when things were just barely coming back on the plate so he said that maybe if we move over six to eight inches on that side it that would prevent those two or three pitches that were hurting me a game, that would keep them out and away from the middle of the plate a little more. And he was right.” Indeed. Prior to last year’s trade deadline, Fangraph.com’s Jeff Sullivan showed visual evidence of Nolasco’s rubber shift with Pitch F/X graphs and screen grabs. In the span from 2011 to July 2012, Nolasco’s strikeout rate had fallen significantly to 16% and his well-hit average had jumped to .217. Post-shift, the strikeout rate climbed back to league-average (19%) and the well-hit average dropped to .173. It was like Nolasco was a new pitcher, or at the very least his pre-2011 self again. Perhaps the success goes back to working inside. According to ESPN Stats & Info, since August of 2012 he’s been able to lock in on the inner-half of the plate more with all his pitches. Between 2011 and July 2012, Nolasco’s pitches were hitting the inside portion of the zone just 23% of the time (compared to the 28% league average). Since? He’s been going inside at a 29% rate and the overall numbers are hard to argue with. Welcome to Minnesota Ricky. The weather’s about to get nasty. Remember to stay inside.

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate this impending Phil Hughes deal as a coup for the Twins. After all, Hughes is a relatively young pitcher who has potential upside and, as a fly ball pitcher, he finally gets to leave the launching pad in the Bronx (not to mention, away from the beasts of the east). For an average annual value of $8M, a value he has eclipsed in three of the past five seasons according to Fangraphs.com, it is hard to find a downside. In terms of the configurations of Yankee Stadium and Target Field, there’s no question that Yankee Stadium’s layout vastly favors the hitter, particularly for the left-handed swingers. In the Bronx, the right field porch seemingly looms just a few feet past the infield while in Minnesota, Target Field’s right field walls require distance and height to clear safely. So it should not come as a surprise that, in terms of true home runs distance measured by HitTrackerOnline.com, Yankee Stadium’s average home run distance has been 386.2 feet while Target Field has been at 394.1 feet. As Hughes’s former Yankee teammate Nick Swisher once observed about the Twins’ home park, it takes a man to put one out to the right field seats. The natural conclusion as applied to Hughes is that the transition from Yankee Stadium (where 76 of his career 112 home runs have been served) to Target Field will yield significant improvements to his results. In theory, even if a few of the would-be home runs in New York become off-the-wall doubles in Minnesota, Hughes’ totals figure to be better. While the statistically inclined community will nod at that hypothesis, those in New York who have witnessed Hughes’ career in person -- both those who emphasize stats and otherwise -- portray him differently. Part of that may be due to the overhyped expectations of a prospect coupled with various injuries that have taken him out of commission. Nationally, Baseball Prospectus’ annuals have documented a telling curve on how Hughes has been viewed. In the 2006 edition, there was excitement surrounding what could be a 20-year-old starter in the Yankees organization who had the potential to reach Double-A, a considerable feat in the deep New York system. By 2013 the staff from BP summarized the sentiments by writing “If Yankees fans could only forget that Hughes was ever expected to be an ace, they might be happier with him.” Sandwiched between 2006 and 2013, the analyses focused on Hughes’ oft-injured resume and swimming upstream against the hitter-friendly environs of Yankee Stadium. Yankee Stadium or no Yankee Stadium, when hitters have connected, the ball has jumped off their bats. Since 2012, his well-hit average against of .202 is much higher than the league average of .179. While balls have not become souvenirs on the road as frequently, teams have been able to knock him around during stretches of his career which is why he has not exactly matched his prospect hype. The scouting report on Hughes: As goes his fastball, so goes Hughes. His fastball has been unquestionably a solid weapon for him over the last two seasons. According to ESPN Stats & Info, he has had the best strike percentage with his fastball among all qualified pitchers at 72.2% (minimum 500 thrown). Attacking the strike zone is something the Twins coaching staff has encouraged from their pitchers but, unlike the consortium of Twins starters the past several years, Hughes has missed bats with his heater as well as just throwing it over the plate. Since 2012, Hughes' 18.6% miss percentage on his fastball has been the 14th-highest in baseball. To put that in perspective, the rest of the league carries a 14.6% miss percentage on their fastballs. Of course, it is when he does not have the command or hitters don’t miss his fastball that he begins to have issues. Lacking the plus secondary offering to miss bats at a high level, if opponents are able to sit on the fastball, they have hit it hard. In the past two years, hitters have levied a .226 well-hit average off his fastball, compared to the .209 MLB average. Not having a complementary secondary pitch has been frequently cited as the reason Hughes has never accumulated strikeouts in bunches (a career rate of 19%, equaling the MLB average) and why his fastball has so often been launched deep into the New York night. Hughes changed his approach in 2013, eschewing a slow curve that was hit hard for a harder slider to alter his style from a north-south pitcher (fastball/curve) to having a pitch that runs from side-to-side. Previously armed with a cutter, the terrible outcome with that pitch convinced him to reduce its use and he increased the usage of his slider to 23.8%. Early, the results were strong. In the first-half of last season, opponents hit just .160 off the newly resurrected pitch. However, perhaps with the element of surprise removed, in the second-half of the season, hitters began to recognize the slider more and hit .324 on it. So while the upside involves Hughes’ results being improved from pitching in a new home, the downside is that he continues to have a second-pitch identity crisis and has not found a suitable partner for his fastball. The limited success of his repertoire has made critics think he is better suited for the bullpen where his two-pitch combination can thrive in short stints. (Consider this: last season Hughes averaged just five innings per start and, over his career, he has been just a half-inning better.) Where does this leave Hughes’ future with the Twins? Going back to the 2013 Baseball Prospectus comment, it is the hype that clouded the previous judgement on Hughes rather than seeing him for what he is, which is an above average starter. Certainly injuries that have plagued him throughout his professional career could come into play again and his arsenal could give him fits, but he should provide value equal to or exceeding the team-friendly contract over three years even if he simply matches his performance in New York -- in a park environment better suited for his skill set, no less. The Twins should come out winners on this one.

When the New York Mets drafted Mike Pelfrey out of Wichita State with the ninth overall pick in 2005, their scouting department was obviously enamored by his big body, big fastball and big projectability. He would develop a breaking ball and become the ace Flushing had not seen in a while. Of course, the latter never happened for Pelfrey; instead he struggled to find a semblance of a swing-and-miss pitcher, became the embodied disappointment of Mets fans, had his elbow ligament snap and wound up in Minnesota. Quite the different career path than was envisioned for him eight years ago. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Now, a free agent coming off a middling season (5-13, 5.19 ERA), CBSsports.com’s Jon Heyman, who has a close relationship with agent Scott Boras, reports that the Twins have extended a multi-year offer: So… [slams laptop closed. Goes for a long walk.] This is all confusing. The Twins recognize they have a serious problem with their starting rotation - a rotation that has failed to miss bats at a historic rate in the modern era - but continue to pursue the same type of starting pitcher that has created the problem to begin with. As mentioned before, due to his lack of secondary offerings, even a fully healthy Mike Pelfrey fails to miss bats at even the league average rate. Over his career, he has a swinging strike rate of 5.9% while the rest of the game has been closer to 9%. I thought we had an understanding here. I thought Jack Goin, the Twins’ manager of Major League Administration and Baseball Research, had sat Terry Ryan down and explained that strikeouts were not only NOT fascist, they were good and that having a lot of them made your starting rotation better. So, why Pelfrey again? The objective should be to look at your 2013 starting rotation real closely then target all the pitchers whose skill sets are the exact opposite. Ok, that may be a large overcorrection but, still, why Pelfrey again? It is entirely possible that Pelfrey’s agent is using Heyman and the Twins to drum up additional interest in his client. After all, the Twins have not confirmed that there is a two-year offer out to Pelfrey right now. That being said, at the end of last year the Twins coaching staff and Terry Ryan lauded Pelfrey’s second-half improvements. Manager Ron Gardenhire said in September that he believed a lot of Pelfrey’s problems in the later part of the year, such has too many 3-2 counts and long delays between pitches, were easily fixable. The Twins said they liked seeing Pelfrey’s velocity increase, which it did from 91.9 in the first-half to 92.7 in the second-half. Gardenhire mentioned specifically that Pelfrey’s secondary pitches improved over the course of the year as his elbow healed, which was true in that opponents had a .700 OPS against his secondary pitches in the first-half while they had a .588 OPS in the second. The biggest thing that may be the key as to why the Twins would entertain the notion of bringing Pelfrey back is the huge swing in a statistic that hides behind paywalls called “well-hit average”. This statistic tries to add description to a pitcher’s (or hitter’s) batted balls that goes beyond just the line drive, ground ball and fly ball categories. Video scouts from various companies such as Inside Edge or BIS log whether that ground ball out was smoked to second or a harmless chopper. In theory, when used in conjunction with a regularly distributed stat like batting average on balls in play (BABIP), it should provide insight as to whether a pitcher’s inflated/deflated BABIP was truly unlucky or not. In Pelfrey’s case, consider the difference on balls in play between the first half of the year and the second half. During the first stretch, Pelfrey was banged around to the tune of .313/.359/.478 over 16 games. According to ESPN’s Stats & Info Department, he carried a well-hit average of .222 -- the highest among all starters with the exception of Joe Blanton (.235). That’s a straight-up beating by hitters. Taking the well-hit average into account, there is no risk of miscategorizing his first-half as “unlucky”. Several things played a factor in these results but a recovering rebuilt elbow was likely the most significant hindrance. Admittedly, Pelfrey lacks the necessary secondary offerings to be a truly effective top-of-the-rotation starter, but his strong assortment of fastballs lacked command post-surgery which should be an expected side effect in Tommy John recoveries. So, after 16 starts and a back strain that took him down for two weeks, Pelfrey actually rebounded quite well over the second half. Over his last 13 games, hitters posted a much improved .284/.356/.374 batting line that was built on a well-hit average of .134, one of the league’s best in the latter portion of the season. I know. That doesn’t feel right, right? I triple-checked to make sure I had the stats sorted correctly. Did hitters really not hit the ball as well off Pelfrey as they did against such pitching dignitaries as Ricky Nolasco (.137), Hasashi Iwakuma (.140) or Francisco Liriano (.143) in the second-half of the season, as the aforementioned well-hit statistic suggests? Several things to mention here: (1) Because this statistic resides mainly behind paywalls, the well-hit average has not been vetted thoroughly by sabr-minded people. This means studies have not been conducted to determine how the well-hit average fluctuates from year-to-year. Is Pelfrey’s second-half decrease a true indication that he was pitching better and that this performance will continue? (2) Even with the significantly improved well-hit average, the end product was an ugly 1-6 record with a rotund 4.76 ERA and a near .300 batting average in the second-half that contributed to the overall blah year. (3) Who knows if the Twins have examined him from this perspective. The organization clearly has access to these reports so they should put this into consideration if thinking about r-signing him. If they have broken it down to this level, I would be more accepting of an eventual Mike Pelfrey re-signing. In the end, going through this exercise reassured me that there is some small, faint glimmer of hope that the notion of bringing back Mike Pelfrey is not a completely bonehead move. If he signs for a two-year, $8M per deal similar to the average annual value of Jason Vargas, Pelfrey has proven in the past that he can be a mid-rotation guy (albeit one without the sexy strikeouts) and the second-half numbers could be indications that he will be that again in 2014. But that’s it, that’s the ceiling: a mid-rotation guy. The Twins rotation and fans need more than that.