Parker Hageman

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2400[/ATTACH]Since assuming the closer’s role for good, Glen Perkins has been absolutely brilliant, now converting 11 consecutive save opportunities. There was one semi-minor hiccup – allowing a solo home run to Andruw Jones to bring the Yankees within one of the Twins. The pitch was clearly a slider which was intended to be buried at Jones’s feet but rather hung belt high over the plate. It wound up being the third home run Perkins has surrendered on his slider this year. Since June 12, 33 of Jared Burton’s last 36 appearances have been scoreless. As Seth Stohs noted yesterday, he’s been one hell of an acquisition for the Twins front office. In fact, among all pitchers, Burton’s performance in high leverage situation – those in which the game is on the line – have been the best in baseball. Under those circumstances, opponents are hitting just .083 – the lowest in the MLB. Of course, Burton’s performance in those situations should have no bearing on his future performance. For example, the Nationals’ Tyler Clippard led baseball with a .067 average against in high leverage situations in 2011 and ended up with a .230 average against this season. Still, Burton is sound nonetheless. He’s got a high swing-and-miss rate (13.8%) and with a solid changeup, he gets a ton chases out of the zone (37.7%). The Yankees’ Phil Hughes had entered last night’s game with the worst numbers when facing right-handed hitting in 2012. In addition to a .307/.343/.595 batting line against, he’s also allowed 23 home runs to righties this year. Naturally, the Twins have two right-handed hitters in the lineup – Trevor Plouffe and Jamey Carroll – who go 1-for- 6 with just a single from Carroll. According to the Twins’ official press release, after Joe Mauer threw out two would-be Yankees base thieves, it marked the first time he had nailed two runners in a game since July 28, 2011 in Texas. This now brings his season total to five runners caught – a trend which may be sourced to improper mechanics. Following Liam Hendriks’ three-run first inning on Monday night, the Twins total first innings runs allowed reached 124 on the year – 52 more runs in the first than that of last year. Nick Nelson plays the comparison game with Liam Hendriks, likening the start of his career to another homer-happy Twins hurler. In detailing Hendriks’ woes last week, I noted that his inability or reluctance to pitch right-handers inside adversely affected the outcome of his slider. According to Baseball Prospectus’s Pitch F/X leaderboard, it is one of the least effective sliders in 2012. First is the utter destruction of the pitch. While Ervin Santana (13) has outpaced Hendriks (7) and the rest of baseball in terms of home runs allowed on the pitch, keep in mind Santana has thrown many more this year – spinning 948 to Hendriks’ 172 sliders. In fact, among those who have had seven or more home runs hit off of their slider, the minimum amount of had been 630 (Jason Marquis). Second, in addition to being hit hard, he’s simply unable to retire anyone with what should be a put away pitch but Hendriks’ 4.35% put away percentage is currently the lowest in baseball. In his last start, the one thing Hendriks did extremely well was attacking the inner-half of the plate on the right-handed hitting Alex Rodriguez which opened up the outer-half for his slider. The Wall Street Journal examines just how biased your hometown announcers are. Where does Dick & Bert rate among all of baseball?

Right? A one game sample size is not going to yield accurate results.

The Wall Street Journal did some game-watching recently to find who the most biased baseball announcers are. They charted the number of "comments perceived as bias" over the course of one game. Surprising no one, Chicago White Sox's Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone carried the torch with 104 biased comments DURING ONE GAME. The next closest was the Indians duo who made 23. Meanwhile, our hometown pairing of Dick 'N Bert finished tied for sixth-most biased comments with nine (with one such example being "I hope there's no suspense. A nice, methodical win would be nice."). In regards to why this phenomenon happens, Dick Bremer said: While it makes sense in the case of Blyleven but Harrelson, who played in the majors for quite some time, never suited up for the White Sox.

Not sure how I missed this back in July when this report first came out, but it turns out that the Chicago Cubs were extremely interested in landing AJ Pierzynski following the 2003 season. According to AJ: Supposedly, the Cubs were preparing to offer the Twins relievers Juan Cruz and Todd Wellemeyer. At that time, Cruz, who was Baseball America’s pre-2002’s number six overall prospect, had thrown 203 innings with a walk-heavy K-to-BB total (185-to-104) and a 4.43 ERA spread out between 2001 through 2003. Meanwhile Wellemeyer was a 24-year-old just coming off his first season at the major league level and tossed 27.2 innings with a 30-to-19 K-to-BB ratio with a 6.51 ERA. Wellemeyer, would pitch for four different teams the next six seasons and post an ERA of 4.75 in that time, and last pitched in the majors in 2010. Cruz, who is still pitching today, was traded to the Braves in March 2004, would have plenty of peaks and valleys over the next nine seasons. Who knows how much of the report is true and to what the Twins would have said to Chicago’s offer (hopefully, it would have been “No, no, a thousand times no.). That said, had the Twins decided to unload AJ onto the Cubs for this pair of arms instead of waiting for San Francisco’s offer, the landscape of the team could have been significantly different – particularly at the back end of the games where they would miss their franchise’s all-time leader in saves.

Nick Blackburn's past few years have not gone well at all. Since signing his new contract heading into the 2010 season, he has thrown 408 innings (averaging 136 per season) and has posted a 21-31 record, a 5.56 ERA and a disappointing 186-to-120 strikeouts-to-walks ratio. In that time, among all MLB starters who threw a minimum of 400 innings, he has allowed the highest amount of home runs per nine innings (1.48), possesses the highest ERA (5.56) and FIP (5.24) while missing the fewest bats (89.5% contact rate). When discussing his future in baseball, Blackburn was acutely aware of what could be in store: Terry Ryan made it sound as if the organization was rooting for him to rebound but will not include him in any long term plans: If the Twins do indeed cut ties with him prior to spring training, Blackburn's $14 million dollar contract will go down as one of the organization's worst in terms of value received for the salary. Using Fangraphs.com's valuation, Blackburn has provided the team with $1.6 million in value, meaning they "overpaid" by $12.4 million. The honor for worst contract handed out will remain with Joe Mays. In 2002, the Twins rewarded Mays' 17-13, 3.16 ERA with a four-year, $20 million dollar deal. Injuries and then ineffectiveness led to Mays providing the team with just $4.9 million in value, a net loss of $15.1 million for the Twins.

First, Deduno does not throw a two-seamer. It's all four-seam fastball action. This specific .gif'ed pitch has plenty of downward sink and arm side run (the above camera angle at Target Field sometimes does not provide great context). Pitch F/X says the vertical movement was sub-2.5 meaning it dropped quite a bit from the starting point. However, if you want an example of just the straight downward drop on his fastball, the sinking fastball he throws to Casey Kotchman at the 1:33 mark is just breathtaking.

It's an interesting theory, but I don't necessarily think that is consistent for everyone. For example, Justin Verlander, who has one of the "rising" fastballs, also throws a four-seamer with his thumb on the seams, as seen here. Again, you are correct that grip has some influence on the movement, just not as much to explain Deduno's movement. Overall, I believe it is a combination of things (the arm slot, pronation and possibly grip).

Well, I suppose it depends on what your definition of earned is. But for a rational reason, conventionally, Deduno has a better record (6-4 to 5-5), a better ERA (3.84 to 4.11), allowed fewer runs per nine innings (3.96 to 4.95), allowed fewer home runs per nine (1.0 to 1.6) and hits (7.4 to 9.0). The stats you reference (WHIP and K/BB), it mainly skews to De Vries's side because of Deduno's egregious amount of walks (as referenced in the article). Combine that with what I believe I had presented a superior stuff, I say the scales are tipped in Deduno's favor. Now, I am not suggesting anyone has earned a spot but if I had to rank them, and this is nothing against De Vries (who has pitched very well) but I put Deduno ahead of De Vries.

Cody Ross, 2012 At Fenway: .308/.368/.595 Everywhere else: .237/.306/.396 He's a monster because of the Monstah.

I do believe that is a significant source for his "sink" and "run" action on his fastball. I was going to dive into that aspect of why in the piece but ultimately axed it because, dang it, I could go on forever and bore the pants out of the casual fan. Pitch F/X shows that in his last three seasons (including spring training data with Rockies/Padres), Deduno's vertical release point has dropped a bit and now he has a similar arm slot to Justin Masterson's -- the other noted slinger. Obviously Deduno's is higher, but it is comparable. In regards to the grip argument, it's true that different grips can offer different movement, but as you can see in this image, he holds a standard four-seam grip. Last, biomechanical studies have shown recently that one of the biggest influential factors on a fastball's "sink" is due to the amount of forearm pronation put on the pitch when throwing. Without any super-slo motion cameras from a side or front angle, there's no way of telling how much pronation Deduno puts on his fastball.

Nice hustle Nick.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1052-Is-Samuel-Deduno-a-lock-for-the-2013-rotation

The front office will likely do some shopping-n-swapping to infill the rotation this winter however one member of the Twins staff who is almost certain to get an opportunity to win a role next spring is Samuel Deduno. For the most part, Deduno’s unexpected and head-scratching success has continued across his 13 starts. He has struggled to get ahead of hitters (54% first pitch strike rate compared to the 60% league average) and then falls deeper behind in the count (8% of all his plate appearances went to 3-0 counts) and ultimately loses the battle of the balls. As such, his 15% walk rate is the highest in baseball among all starters with a minimum of 70 innings pitched. Because of this, the expected Fielding Independent Pitching metric -- which takes batted ball trajectory, strikeouts and, most pertinent to Deduno, walks -- calculates him to have an earned run average closer to 4.60 rather than the 3.84 that he is currently sporting. If you were applying the standard statistical analysis to this situation, it would be easy to label the right-hander as a case ripe for regression. After all, Deduno has allowed 48 hitters on base via walk but somehow has managed to keep a high percentage of those from scoring. He has stranded nearly 80% of all base-runners which is well above the league norm of 72%. At some point, a ball chops through the infield here or a subsequent hitter manages to get one up into the jet stream to plate some runs there. Yet again, Deduno has been extremely fortunate in that respect as well. Consider this for luck: Line drives become hits approximately 73% of the time. It makes sense when you think about the trajectory and speed that causes frozen ropes to be quite hard to defend. Yet line drives from Deduno’s opponents have turned into hits just 60% of the time. Somewhere down the line, that number is surely going to regress to the mean and drive his overall batting average on balls in play – which is at a miniscule .258 right now – back closer to the league average. While regression in 2013 would be the anticipated response based upon the above two paragraphs, if you consider how little opponents have been able to actually square up on his repertoire, there could be a correlation as to why the majority of his balls put into play have been fielded. The biggest factor is his ground ball rate. At 58%, his worm-killing rate is the seventh highest among those with a minimum o f 70 innings. The next significant indicator of his ability to avoid heavy contact is his 18% infield fly ball rate. What that means is that nearly 20% of all the fly balls hit are not getting past the infield dirt. As of Thursday, only former Twin Johan Santana (19%) has been able to keep a higher percentage of flies from leaving the infield. What this statistic is indicative of is their ability to get hitters to lunge and make off-balanced contact with pitches. When first introduced to the Twins, the initial reaction was that Deduno came equipped with a fairly legit curveball. In 2007, Baseball America graded his curve a 70 on the scout’s 20-to-80 scale. In 2010 Deduno was pitching in the Rockies organization. Coming off one spring training outing as a 26-year-old manager Jim Tracy simply said “Those were paralyzing-type curveballs.” Major league hitters would likely agree with those assessments of the pitch as they have hit just .153 off of it and he has racked up 39 of his 54 strikeouts with the curve. As impressive as his curve ball has been, Deduno possesses a ridiculously underappreciated weapon in his fastball. According to Baseball Prospectus’s Pitch F/X leaderboard, Deduno’s four-seam fastball has induced the highest amount of ground balls on that pitch since the inception of Pitch F/X in 2007. Sure, it is only 403 pitches but his 68% ground ball rate on a four-seam fastball is downright unbelievable. The reason he is getting such an incredible amount of grounders is because of the sink action he has on his “crazy fastball.” Deduno’s movement on his four-seam fastball almost defies physics as four-seamers – which because of the backspin created more often tend to give the illusion of “rising” - generally have the least amount of sink among all pitches. On average, Pitch F/X says that the majority of four-seam fastballs have a vertical movement of roughly 8.60 in measured in 2009. As a rule of thumb, the higher that number, the greater the “rise” action or conversely, the lower that number, the greater the sink. To provide some perspective, the Angels’ Jared Weaver, whose fastball has been described as having “hop”, has a vertical movement of 12.23 on his fastball. On the other end of the spectrum, the Indians’ Justin Masterson, who has one of the “heavier” fastballs, has a vertical movement of 4.24. That use to be the most sink on a four-seam fastball. That is, it was until July 7 when Samuel Deduno started pitching. Deduno’s four-seam fastball has a vertical movement of 2.76. For those who are not properly geeked up by those numbers, here’s another visual: The average split-finger fastball has a vertical movement of 3.37 which means Deduno’s four-seam fastball has more vertical sink than an average split-finger fastball. Take a look at the pitch’s action in all its .gif glory: http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Deduno_Fastball.gif This particular one not only sinks, but has arm side run for days as both Seattle’s Trayvon Robinson and Ryan Doumit were fooled by the late movement. Later, Doumit was at a loss in attempting to explain the movement and where it comes from. “I don’t know if it’s finger pressure or wrist angle or what it is, but he’s got a gift of natural movement on the fastball and the changeup,” said the Twins catcher. Deduno’s movement is exciting and provides explanation as to why he is out-performing his Fielding Independent Pitching figures. Hitters simply cannot square up on anything they swing at. However, if they put on a swing boycott, his inconsistent control may lead to too many free passes – beyond the point where he can continue to strand them all. This was evident in his most recent start against the White Sox where he walked five and three of those came around to score. Deduno will take the mound tonight to take on the Tigers. Watch for some of that crazy fastball movement and if he can locate it in the strike zone.

Good stuff by 1500ESPN.com's Phillip Mackey on why we should be more interested in Mauer's OBP rather than his home run totals.

He had a 19.5% k-rate the past two years in the minors. That's not great but it's not terrible either (like Nick Blackburn who had a 12% k-rate in AAA),

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1038-What-s-hindering-Hendriks

The befuddlement continues as Hendriks’ winless streak now reaches 17 starts and counting. Dating back to beginning of 2011, Hendriks has put up two stellar seasons in the minor leagues, posting a 2.86 ERA with a 193/49 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 245.2 innings split between New Britain and Rochester. In 2011, the Twins named him their Minor League Pitcher of the Year. Based on those figures and accolades, expectations were high for him. Naturally, that has not quite panned out so far at the major league level. Heading into last night’s game righties were hitting .381/.426/.702 in 143 plate appearances. That is a remarkable batting line considering the rest of the league’s right-handed pitchers have subdued their same-sided brethren to the tune of .252/.308/.398. The magnitude of those power numbers is unprecedented. Think about that: right-handed opponents’ slugging percentage (.702) off Hendriks is just five points lower than the league’s overall OPS (.707) during righty-on-righty action. What makes this case even more curious is that in the minors the past two seasons Hendriks handled righties just fine. According to MinorLeagueCentral.com’s splits, Hendriks limited right-handers to a .251/.288/.368 line over 518 match-ups since 2011. How is it that he managed to sidestep right-handers in AAA easy-peasy but is obliterated once he arrives to the majors? One explanation as to why Hendriks may have an easier time retiring lefties over righties may have to do with his unique delivery and the challenges it presents. Hendriks has a closed delivery - which is that his front foot lands more towards the third base side and he throws across his body. When facing left-handed batters, he will pepper the outer-half of the strike zone and (far too often this season) just off the plate to entice those hitters to swing at pitches away. Meanwhile, if he wants to pitch right-handers away (or lefties inside for that matter) he must throw across his entire body to reach the far side of the plate: http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Hendriks_Landing.png Because he is throwing across his body and trying to hit the pitcher’s glove side of the zone, he has seen his command wane when trying to hit the far side of the plate. In last night’s start against the Kansas City Royals, catcher Drew Butera would frequently set up on the pitcher’s glove side of the plate and present a target. The majority of those offerings did not wind up at the intended destination. For example, in their fifth inning showdown, with two strikes on him, Butera scheduled a fastball down and in on the left-handed hitting Alex Gordon. Rather than hitting this spot, his fastball went up and away. Fortunately Gordon was unable to hold up for strike three. When it comes to right-handed hitters, Hendriks’ intentions appear to be to pepper the outer-half of their zone similar to lefties. Only the above scenario plays out leaving his pitches in a far too favorable of a spot for right-handed hitters: http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Hendriks_fastballrighties.jpg While his fastball has been hit pretty hard overall (.362/.412/.553) it is his slider, his most used secondary pitch, that has been bombed back to the Stone Age (.333/.349/.857). Seven of his 12 home runs allowed have come on this pitch (there is plenty of visual evidence of that). This should be his swing-and-miss pitch and yet it is getting destroyed – and part of that is related to his inability to pitch inside effectively. Whether it is game-planned or not, Hendriks has simply not shown opponents that he will throw the ball inside regularly – particularly to righties. For Hendriks, who is a fastball/slider pitcher to righties, this should be a critical element of his game. If he demonstrates that he is able to place his fastball on the inner-half, hitters will be forced to open their hips to respect that pitch which should enhance his slider that runs away from right-handers. Last year, in addressing this very subject, former major league pitcher Ron Darling said “That’s what gets a hitter to speed up his thought process. When he’s thinking ‘quick,’ that’s when you can get him out away. And, more important for a pitcher, it enables you to get away with the occasional mistake away because you’ve disrupted his timing just enough.” Hendriks has made plenty of mistakes away to righties this year but because he is not locating inside, right-handed hitters do not have to respect that portion of the zone and wind up leaning over the plate. As Terry Ryan insinuated after yesterday’s ballgame, Hendriks still have a lot to prove before he is considered a part of the 2013 rotation. Pitching inside effectively may be a part of that.

The befuddlement continues as Hendriks’ winless streak now reaches 17 starts and counting. Dating back to beginning of 2011, Hendriks has put up two stellar seasons in the minor leagues, posting a 2.86 ERA with a 193/49 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 245.2 innings split between New Britain and Rochester. In 2011, the Twins named him their Minor League Pitcher of the Year. Based on those figures and accolades, expectations were high for him. Naturally, that has not quite panned out so far at the major league level. Heading into last night’s game righties were hitting .381/.426/.702 in 143 plate appearances. That is a remarkable batting line considering the rest of the league’s right-handed pitchers have subdued their same-sided brethren to the tune of .252/.308/.398. The magnitude of those power numbers is unprecedented. Think about that: right-handed opponents’ slugging percentage (.702) off Hendriks is just five points lower than the league’s overall OPS (.707) during righty-on-righty action. What makes this case even more curious is that in the minors the past two seasons Hendriks handled righties just fine. According to MinorLeagueCentral.com’s splits, Hendriks limited right-handers to a .251/.288/.368 line over 518 match-ups since 2011. How is it that he managed to sidestep right-handers in AAA easy-peasy but is obliterated once he arrives to the majors? One explanation as to why Hendriks may have an easier time retiring lefties over righties may have to do with his unique delivery and the challenges it presents. Hendriks has a closed delivery - which is that his front foot lands more towards the third base side and he throws across his body. When facing left-handed batters, he will pepper the outer-half of the strike zone and (far too often this season) just off the plate to entice those hitters to swing at pitches away. Meanwhile, if he wants to pitch right-handers away (or lefties inside for that matter) he must throw across his entire body to reach the far side of the plate: http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Hendriks_Landing.png Because he is throwing across his body and trying to hit the pitcher’s glove side of the zone, he has seen his command wane when trying to hit the far side of the plate. In last night’s start against the Kansas City Royals, catcher Drew Butera would frequently set up on the pitcher’s glove side of the plate and present a target. The majority of those offerings did not wind up at the intended destination. For example, in their fifth inning showdown, with two strikes on him, Butera scheduled a fastball down and in on the left-handed hitting Alex Gordon. Rather than hitting this spot, his fastball went up and away. Fortunately Gordon was unable to hold up for strike three. When it comes to right-handed hitters, Hendriks’ intentions appear to be to pepper the outer-half of their zone similar to lefties. Only the above scenario plays out leaving his pitches in a far too favorable of a spot for right-handed hitters: http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/Hendriks_fastballrighties.jpg While his fastball has been hit pretty hard overall (.362/.412/.553) it is his slider, his most used secondary pitch, that has been bombed back to the Stone Age (.333/.349/.857). Seven of his 12 home runs allowed have come on this pitch (there is plenty of visual evidence of that). This should be his swing-and-miss pitch and yet it is getting destroyed – and part of that is related to his inability to pitch inside effectively. Whether it is game-planned or not, Hendriks has simply not shown opponents that he will throw the ball inside regularly – particularly to righties. For Hendriks, who is a fastball/slider pitcher to righties, this should be a critical element of his game. If he demonstrates that he is able to place his fastball on the inner-half, hitters will be forced to open their hips to respect that pitch which should enhance his slider that runs away from right-handers. Last year, in addressing this very subject, former major league pitcher Ron Darling said “That’s what gets a hitter to speed up his thought process. When he’s thinking ‘quick,’ that’s when you can get him out away. And, more important for a pitcher, it enables you to get away with the occasional mistake away because you’ve disrupted his timing just enough.” Hendriks has made plenty of mistakes away to righties this year but because he is not locating inside, right-handed hitters do not have to respect that portion of the zone and wind up leaning over the plate. As Terry Ryan insinuated after yesterday’s ballgame, Hendriks still have a lot to prove before he is considered a part of the 2013 rotation. Pitching inside effectively may be a part of that.

I'm not saying either way if it is or is not having any effect on him because it is likely just a statistical blip and now an issue however Pete Rose was notorious for taking batting practice and just watching each pitch go by so he could visualize a strike zone. Perhaps not catching as much has taken a little bit of that element away for Mauer. Who knows. *shrugs, walks away*

He's been caught looking a bit more than the past four years. 2008-2011: 18% 2012: 26% May just need his strike zone re-calibrated.