Parker Hageman

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1468-Samuel-Deduno-keeps-throwing-curves

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3534[/ATTACH]It is probably an indictment of the Minnesota Twins’ rotation when the biggest conversation of the month of March is focused on the performance of a pitcher who is currently not on the team’s 40 man roster. As Mike Pelfrey, Vance Worley and Kevin Correia continue to turn in clunkers in the Grapefruit League, Samuel Deduno’s sometimes sloppy, sometimes dominating but always energetic outings in the World Baseball Classic -- including last night’s five inning, two hit, three walk and five strikeout victory – has captured many fans’ attentions back in the Upper Midwest. Despite not maintaining the same free and easy motion as he showed during his start against Spain earlier in the tournament, Deduno forged his way past the United States (even while walking in a run and facing several 3-0 counts) and then kept Puerto Rico at bay to help the Dominican Republic capture the World Baseball Classic title. What helped the right-hander up to and in the championship game was having a filthy curveball. This is nothing new for Sammy. Last year, Pitch F/X-ly speaking, he held one of the best curves in baseball – allowing an average of just .160 on the hook, 14th lowest among those who threw it 200 or more times. He was also one of the most frequent users of the curveball, by percentage. Throughout the World Baseball Classic he showed great confidence in this pitch. In his start against Team USA, Deduno had the misfortunate of not only loading the bases, but walking USA’s Eric Hosmer to give the home team an early first inning lead. With the bases still loaded, Deduno went to a full count on Adam Jones and sent him packing with a 3-2 curve for a called strike. Ballsy pitch. In another instance, he would go on to throw a 3-2 bender to his potential battery mate, Joe Mauer, only to get the catcher to roll over to the first baseman. You know how often Mauer had seen a 3-2 curve in 2012? Six times. Last night, of the 14 batters Deduno retired, nine of those came on his curve. When facing Puerto Rico’s Angel Pegan and a runner on second, Deduno spun a 3-2 curveball to get Pegan to turnover and knock into the second out of the inning. Two innings later, Deduno fell behind Jesus Feliciano and ultimately lost him on a curve out of the zone, he proved that he was not going to lay a fastball in there (if, you know, he’s capable of that). As I’ve repeated numerous times, Deduno has got electric stuff which has helped him defy statistical convention for success at the major league level. If opponents are unable to square up pitches and are constantly off-balance with curveballs in fastball counts, it is hard to drive home those hitters he walked. It’s a tightrope act but, so far, Deduno has pulled it off.

All spring training write-ups are nothing more than "puff pieces." Was anything Maddux said revolutionary? No. Everyone who has thrown a pitch from little league and up should know that you don't speed up a slow bat by softening your next pitch. What is fairly intriguing (unless Perk is just blowing smoke up Souhan's keister), and PseudoSABR pointed out, is that he claimed to be unfamiliar with the idea of throwing a change on a count when a hitter is expecting a fastball. Don't get me wrong, if I ever had a chance to chat with a childhood hero, I'd probably think whatever came out of their mouth was the most intelligent thing ever, even after hearing it a million times over.

One of the benefits of pitching for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic was being able to get inside the mind of four-time Cy Young Award winner, Greg Maddux. Twins' closer Glen Perkins took full advantage of pitching under a legend one night over a few beers. The Star Tribune's Jim Souhan detailed the encounter in which the hurlers discussed their craft. The the pair shared a beer and talked pitching strategy as a baseball game on in the background. That's when Maddux hit Perk with some wisdom: It will be interesting to see if this meeting changes Perkins' approach in anyway throughout the season.

Major League Baseball is discussing doing away with a pension fund for team’s non-uniformed personnel, including the scouts and front office members, writes Adam Rubin for ESPNNewYork.com. According the website’s sources, owners attempted to revoke this pension plan last year but it was voted down. This year, however, owners will have a second vote, intended to be kept secret, at an owners meeting in May. Interestingly enough, this will not affect employees of the Minnesota Twins, as the ballclub was one of four MLB teams to opt out of the plan. While this may seem galling for an industry making over $8 billion annually to put the screw job to scouts who average less than $40,000 a year, this is the tread with the private sector. In 1979, the article cites, more than 28 percent of private-sector worker received defined-benefit pension plans. That number has declined to less than 3 percent in 2012.

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The Minnesota Twins 2013 Media Guide says that the newly acquired Vance Worley tips the scales at 230. That number is actually closer to 250, writes the Pioneer Press’s Mike Berardino. This, however, is actually ten pounds lighter than when he was last in a Phillies’ uniform. In season, Worley said, the weight gain accelerates. Temptations of the team’s post-game spreads often lure him in and that may have an on-field effect: His spring stats, as meaningless as they are, have not been favorable. In 12 innings, he’s surrendered 19 hits including two home runs. Worley has been cutting back in his meal planning, thanks to assistance from his new fiancée, but, like most of us in this community, enjoys eating. True that, Vanimal. True that.

According to mister-baseball.com, the Minnesota Twins have signed Dutch first baseman, 26-year-old Curt Smith. Smith, originally drafted by the Cardinals in the 2008 draft, has batted .301/.341/.461 with 47 home runs in five minor league seasons split between the Cardinals and Marlins organizations. Born in Curacao, Smith is playing with the Netherlands team in the World Baseball Classic, hitting .375/.467/.542 with a home run and double in seven games. He will likely begin the season in New Britain.

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]3513[/ATTACH]Technology is amazing, isn’t it? Sure, we’re missing the flying cars, moon colonies and hover boards but the fact that we all basically carry around personal computers/television sets that can make phone calls in our pocket is pretty mind-blowing. Baseball, while it may seem archaic with the bats made from trees and game play which doesn’t involve a time clock, is actually progressive and embracive of new technologies off the field. Not long ago, the Pitch F/X cameras installed at all stadiums opened up a whole new world of data to the general public. This new insight has provided teems of information on pitchers, hitters, umpires and, most recently, catchers. Suddenly, we know whose curveball gets the most swing-and-misses (AJ Burnett at 44.1%), whose fastball generates the most groundballs (Scott Diamond at 58%), and whose catcher can coax the most strikes on pitches just out of the zone (Jose Molina, 13%). For front offices, this seems like really important stuff, particularly when evaluating free agent talent. But baseball does not want to stop there. MLB has been working on going beyond just the batter-pitcher matchups by exploring the world of contact (Hit F/X) and defense (Field F/X). Once available, the latter will be able tell us who gets the best jumps, who positions themselves the best and who covers the most ground. The former, Hit F/X, will be able to provide details on what kind of contact is necessary for a towering home run, a line drive, an opposite field double, and so on. At the SABR Analytics Convention in Phoenix a week ago, Baseball America dispatched Matt Eddy to cover the event which discusses these forthcoming technologies. While there, Eddy was treated to a presentation from Graham Goldbeck, a data analyst from Sportsvision – the creator of the F/X systems. Goldbeck released some new information farmed out from the nearly 600,000 ball-in-play situations captured by their Hit F/X system. What Hit F/X does is tracks the batter’s contact point, batted ball speed, the horizontal spray angle (like a spray chart) and the vertical launch angle. From this, Goldbeck found that hitters who tend to make contact out in front of the plate have a greater tendency to hit from home run power than those who make contact deeper in the zone: This is analytical evidence of something that probably already knew from observation of two members of the Minnesota Twins who are on opposite ends of the spectrum: Josh Willingham and Joe Mauer. When it comes to Willingham, we knew one thing: He pulls the living fire out of the ball. Last year, his .487 isolated slugging percentage when pulling wash tied for sixth-highest in baseball. (Think if he had a more hitter-friendly home ballpark.) Why is he so good at pulling the ball? That is because he makes outstanding contact out in front of the plate, much like Goldbeck’s research suggests. Take a look at his connection point in this home run: http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/theeight_1363367962_Willingham.PNG Now, compare Willingham’s contact point to Mauer’s, who just sliced his patented left-field double. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Mauer.PNG Mauer has been one of the game’s foremost connoisseur of going the other way. Part of the reason behind that is that he can let the ball travel much deeper into the zone than Willingham has ever allowed. As such, the natural conclusion is that he would have a much harder time of reaching the same home run totals as Willingham because his swing is not conducive to generating the kind of power. Dingers aside, Mauer’s approach affords him superior contact rate over Willingham’s approach. Another thing that Goldbeck’s research said about Willingham is that he has one of the most consistent contact points. This means that he is susceptible to other pitch types or various locations away from his standard impact zone. As such, we see that he had a well-below contact rate average (75.9% versus 79% league average) in 2012 compared to Mauer who was well above that mark (87.8%). Additionally, although it is possible that Mauer may suddenly start hitting the ball out in front and launching dingers into the newly minted party deck in right field, the study suggests that the likelihood of this happening is low. It is rare for hitters to change their stripes: We’ve reached an age where we have a greater understanding of the game than ever before. We confirm why Josh Willingham can decimate Target Field while many other hitters cannot. We know that while everyone may wish for Mauer to take that step forward and hit home runs by the bushel, we are learning from the technology that it just simply may not be possible – that is, unless the left field fence is moved in 50 feet or so. Technology is amazing.

I'm pretty sure the runs scored projections are based on the Twins not having high OBP candidates for the first and second spot in the order. Hicks, Carroll, Dozier, etc could wind up better than expectations, resulting in more runs being scored.

Well, simply put, it means that Deduno was walking MORE batters in his second-half of the season after Anderson made some mechanical changes not less. Big picture, using innings as the denominator for measurement of strikeouts and walks paints an inaccurate picture of a pitcher's success versus what their true workload is: batters faced. There is a significant difference between how opponents were putting the ball in play against Deduno compared to Hendriks which led to that vast chasm in BABIP marks. Hitters were not squaring up on Deduno. For example, Deduno had a 58% groundball rate versus Hendriks' 41%. Meanwhile, 17% of the fly balls hit off of Deduno did not leave the infield. More weak contact. Both are likely to equalize closer to league average over the course of a regular season but I would wager Deduno would be able to keep his beneath the average while Hendriks would stay over that figure.

Well, Brock laid it out in an easier to digest format...

Here's a more detailed explanation as to why to stop using K/9 & BB/9: Stop using K/9 and BB/9! - Beyond the Box Score

Baseball Prospetcus’s co-founder Clay Davenport, who created the Davenport projections, just released his 2013 version on to the world. His numbers show a bit more optimism for the Twins than his Las Vegas gambling counterparts, but the overall outlook is still unpleasant. His projections say that the Twins will finish last in the Central with 72 wins. To arrive at this win total, Davenport implements his Pythagenport Formula (a variation of the Pythagorean Formula) based on the project runs scored and runs allowed. His calculations say that the Twins lineup will score 659 runs – a 42-run decline front 2012. This total is the fourth-worst projected offense in baseball (ahead of San Diego, Seattle and Miami). With some uncertainties at the top of the lineup, this makes sense. But do we really believe that this lineup is 42 runs worse than last year’s version? On the defensive side, Davenport believes that the Twins will trim the runs allowed total down from the (ermahgerd!) 832 runs surrendered in 2012 to a much more manageable 739 runs – a near 100-run swing – but still the sixth-highest total in MLB.

I smell a Twins Daily Day at the Summit Taproom brewing...

I, for one, am looking forward to the Mai Bock. My personal indicator that spring is here.

This is the perfect example of why K/9 and BB/9 are not good indicators of a pitcher's workload -- always (ALWAYS) use K% and BB% over that. In his first 46 innings, he walked 36 batters in 46 innings -- a 5.8 BB/9 ratio. In his last 33 innings - presumably after these changes from Anderson - we walked 17, an improved 4.6 BB/9, right? HOWEVER, if you look at the overall pool of batters faced, Deduno actually walked more hitters in the latter sample (8.5% in last 33 innings versus 5.6% over first 46)

Something is fudged up. Brock's working on getting some solutions as to why the GIFs are not appearing. Check back tomorrow to see it in full glory.

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