Parker Hageman

Plouffe singles home Mauer to put the Twins on the board.

In speaking to the Twins person in charge of statistical analysis, I got the impression that there is plenty of research being done that goes beyond the BAs, RBIs, etc, but that the decision-makers are not interested in using the more advanced statistics despite some in the organization using them. Apparently -- and I'm not sharing this just to toot my own horn -- but after the interview I did with Rob Antony two springs ago, he's gone on a mission to educate himself and the baseball ops team on more advanced stats.

FranKKKKKie on the bump. Let's see if he carries this solid performance forward...

According to Baseball America's research, Target Field gave left-handed hitters the fits the past two seasons. In his piece regarding how ballparks effect young hitters, BA's Matt Eddy notes that despite only two years in existence, the Twins home field muted left-handed power like no other, allowing a home run once every 61 plate appearances. Part of that certainly is personnel-related as the Twins were limited from the left-side without Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer and Jason Kubel for extended stretches in the past two seasons. Eddy notes that the confines did not stifle every Minnesota left-hander: I'm guessing that Parmelee will not likely be tested in the cool Minneapolis spring this season - not because it is unseasonably warm so far but because he's due to start the year in Triple-A.

Well said.

Jason Bulger on the hill today attempting to get his ERA sub-70.00...

Yup, Hardball. You can watch the series here: http://www.tv.com/shows/hardball-1994/

Here's former New York Times baseball writer Murray Chass gushing over the Twins system in his recent conversation with Terry Ryan, which is interesting because of that. Of course, it wouldn't be a Chass piece without him showing some contempt for the "Moneyball" method: If I've said this once, I've said it a million times: It's not an either or situation. It's both. Every organization should strive to be top of their class in both scouting and statistical analysis, not choose one over the other.

My favorite part of the game is when the Twins drew a bases-loaded walk to bring the game within one and then Rene Tosoni promptly swings at the first pitch in the very next at-bat. Whhhaaaa?

Right, I was not using it as a rule of thumb but rather as a yardstick. There was a study performed by either the Hardball Times or Baseball Prospectus -- which I couldn't find -- that should that there was a difference between starters-turned-relievers or relievers-turned-starters but, from what I remember, it was not nearly as big as Perkins' differential. I do not believe that if you had placed 2008-2009 starter Perkins in the pen he would have been capable of posting the same strikeout rate/level as 2011 Perkins.

http://twitpic.com/8u1tbr

Jason Marquis squares off against his old team. Here's the lineups, courtesy of LaVelle Neal: Oh, LaVelle also offers this wonderful nugget: Eesh...

Yes, there is typically a higher strikeout rate for relievers over starters for various reasons, but most do not have such a discrepancies such as the one Perkins displayed. Last year, the difference between starters K/9 (6.8) and the relievers (7.9) was not nearly as pronounced as Perkins' differential. So, while his strikeout rates jump because of the smaller universe, he was clearly an improved pitcher - notably with the velocity and his slider - elevating him to the strikeout pitcher he was in 2011.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?296-Glen-Perkins-and-the-future

Question: Why is this graph smiling? Answer: Because its owner just locked in $10.3 million guaranteed. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/theeight_1331276533_Perkins.png On Thursday morning, the Twins announced that they have extended Glen Perkins through 2015with an option for 2016. Heading into 2011, based on his substandard results such as his strike out rate, this would have been unheard of, a Twitter punch line among baseball fans. Glen Perkins to a multi-year deal? Get the eff out of here. Without question, it was hard to see this season coming. Take Baseball Prospectus - an entity that touts it as having “deadly accurate” predictions - and their forecast on Perkins: “Perkins clashed publicly with management in 2009, claiming that it had wrongfully downplayed the severity of his elbow injury. He then had an awful spring training and first half of the 2010 season at Triple-A before returning to the major leagues as a reliever late in the season. The real positive of 2010 was that Perkins regained velocity on his fastball (which averaged 92 mph) and improved the bite on his slider. This led to what was, by his standards, a successful September (11 innings, 11 strikeouts, 3.09 ERA). If there is a common thread to Perkins’ recent career, it is his inability to fool batters. They have hit .305 against him over the last three seasons and rarely strike out. Because he’s left-handed, Perkins will get his share of chances, be they from the Twins or other teams, but barring a continuation of his autumn activities, he’s just not a major-league pitcher.” This just goes to prove that even though you may be industry leaders in predicting performance it is still a very inexact science. Last spring, Perkins’ breakthrough started innocuously enough. At Fort Myers, his totals were bested slightly by the soon-to-be washed out Dusty Hughes. Hughes worked 12 innings, posting a 7/5 K/BB ratio with a .183 opponent average against while not allowing a run. Perkins, on the other hand, went 12 innings too with a good 7/3 K/BB ratio with a .238 average against. While those are both good, superficially, more people may be inclined to select Hughes rather than Perkins. And Baseball Prospectus was not alone on their assessment of Perkins. Unlike the national analysts who followed him from a far, many local bloggers who monitored his career more closely were also guilty of this egregious miscalculation of his career trajectory (present company included). His success in 2011 is a reminder to those of us who cull through the data to project players often forget about the drive that a player might have to stay at the highest level or the wherewithal to rebound from an injury. Rather than slinking into the Triple-A abyss or bouncing around from different organization to different organization, Glen Perkins went out and simply #PMKI. As Baseball Prospectus said, Perkins’ velocity in 2010 of 92 miles an hour did not stop there. It progress throughout the 2011 season, averaging 94 miles an hour and, according to Pitch F/X data, peaking, on August 10th as a 98 mile an hour bullet against David Ortiz. His arm had progressed well beyond what most experts had expected giving him a rejuvenated fastball and giving him a much better foundation to throw his secondary offerings. And it was the effects of his secondary pitch, his slider, which became the focal point of his reemergence. Baseball Prospectus observed that the “bite” had return but they had no idea of how impressive it would be combined with his now elite fastball. Fangraphs.com said his slider was evaluated as 9.9 runs above average – a mark that was eighth-best among qualified reliever. Because of the effectiveness of his slider, Perkins was able to manhandle right-handed opponents, often a difficult task for left-handed pitchers. Due to the movement and location of his slider, Perkins was able to induce a 32 percent chase rate of out of zone pitches by right-handed batters – the highest rate posted by a left-hander last season. As you can see in this example to the Brewers’ Casey McGahee, he was able to make it appear to be a knee-high fastball which would quickly fade into their ankles, leaving right-handers flailing away at nothingness. The results of his newfound (or rediscovered) stuff were nothing short of amazing. He went from a hurler who struck out hitters in the low-teens per plate appearance to one who was striking out more than 20 percent of opponents faced, putting him among the games top pitchers. What makes it more impressive is that he was able to handle both sides of the plate with ease. The future for Glen Perkins, just like it had been in the winter of 2010, is just as unclear. The Twins are hedging their bets that he sustains this breakout for the next four years. If that is the case, and he maintains his 1.7 WAR (which is “worth” approximately $7.8 million) he will undoubtedly outperform this contract extension. Then again, while the Twins have done well signing set-up men like Jesse Crain and Matt Guerrier in long-term deals, the front office seems to have a belief that relievers are a very inconsistent breed. After re-signing closer Matt Capps, who is coming off a down year, Terry Ryan said this: "[Capps] had an off year. I'm not trying to hide anything there. We just think he had an off year and we had a little bit of that last year. Relievers are like that a lot, and it's not just Matt. It happens many times." So Ryan and his staff understand the volatile nature of the relief business. The small sample size and the over-reliance on certain arms can lead to a down year and thus the team may wind up overpaying for his services. Clearly, having watched Perkins come up through the system and understanding what he is capable of, the Twins must be more comfortable in his potential in order to dole out that kind of cheddar to a relief pitcher who has had one year on record of success.

Question: Why is this graph smiling? Answer: Because its owner just locked in $10.3 million guaranteed. http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/theeight_1331276533_Perkins.png On Thursday morning, the Twins announced that they have extended Glen Perkins through 2015with an option for 2016. Heading into 2011, based on his substandard results such as his strike out rate, this would have been unheard of, a Twitter punch line among baseball fans. Glen Perkins to a multi-year deal? Get the eff out of here. Without question, it was hard to see this season coming. Take Baseball Prospectus - an entity that touts it as having “deadly accurate” predictions - and their forecast on Perkins: “Perkins clashed publicly with management in 2009, claiming that it had wrongfully downplayed the severity of his elbow injury. He then had an awful spring training and first half of the 2010 season at Triple-A before returning to the major leagues as a reliever late in the season. The real positive of 2010 was that Perkins regained velocity on his fastball (which averaged 92 mph) and improved the bite on his slider. This led to what was, by his standards, a successful September (11 innings, 11 strikeouts, 3.09 ERA). If there is a common thread to Perkins’ recent career, it is his inability to fool batters. They have hit .305 against him over the last three seasons and rarely strike out. Because he’s left-handed, Perkins will get his share of chances, be they from the Twins or other teams, but barring a continuation of his autumn activities, he’s just not a major-league pitcher.” This just goes to prove that even though you may be industry leaders in predicting performance it is still a very inexact science. Last spring, Perkins’ breakthrough started innocuously enough. At Fort Myers, his totals were bested slightly by the soon-to-be washed out Dusty Hughes. Hughes worked 12 innings, posting a 7/5 K/BB ratio with a .183 opponent average against while not allowing a run. Perkins, on the other hand, went 12 innings too with a good 7/3 K/BB ratio with a .238 average against. While those are both good, superficially, more people may be inclined to select Hughes rather than Perkins. And Baseball Prospectus was not alone on their assessment of Perkins. Unlike the national analysts who followed him from a far, many local bloggers who monitored his career more closely were also guilty of this egregious miscalculation of his career trajectory (present company included). His success in 2011 is a reminder to those of us who cull through the data to project players often forget about the drive that a player might have to stay at the highest level or the wherewithal to rebound from an injury. Rather than slinking into the Triple-A abyss or bouncing around from different organization to different organization, Glen Perkins went out and simply #PMKI. As Baseball Prospectus said, Perkins’ velocity in 2010 of 92 miles an hour did not stop there. It progress throughout the 2011 season, averaging 94 miles an hour and, according to Pitch F/X data, peaking, on August 10th as a 98 mile an hour bullet against David Ortiz. His arm had progressed well beyond what most experts had expected giving him a rejuvenated fastball and giving him a much better foundation to throw his secondary offerings. And it was the effects of his secondary pitch, his slider, which became the focal point of his reemergence. Baseball Prospectus observed that the “bite” had return but they had no idea of how impressive it would be combined with his now elite fastball. Fangraphs.com said his slider was evaluated as 9.9 runs above average – a mark that was eighth-best among qualified reliever. Because of the effectiveness of his slider, Perkins was able to manhandle right-handed opponents, often a difficult task for left-handed pitchers. Due to the movement and location of his slider, Perkins was able to induce a 32 percent chase rate of out of zone pitches by right-handed batters – the highest rate posted by a left-hander last season. As you can see in this example to the Brewers’ Casey McGahee, he was able to make it appear to be a knee-high fastball which would quickly fade into their ankles, leaving right-handers flailing away at nothingness. The results of his newfound (or rediscovered) stuff were nothing short of amazing. He went from a hurler who struck out hitters in the low-teens per plate appearance to one who was striking out more than 20 percent of opponents faced, putting him among the games top pitchers. What makes it more impressive is that he was able to handle both sides of the plate with ease. The future for Glen Perkins, just like it had been in the winter of 2010, is just as unclear. The Twins are hedging their bets that he sustains this breakout for the next four years. If that is the case, and he maintains his 1.7 WAR (which is “worth” approximately $7.8 million) he will undoubtedly outperform this contract extension. Then again, while the Twins have done well signing set-up men like Jesse Crain and Matt Guerrier in long-term deals, the front office seems to have a belief that relievers are a very inconsistent breed. After re-signing closer Matt Capps, who is coming off a down year, Terry Ryan said this: "[Capps] had an off year. I'm not trying to hide anything there. We just think he had an off year and we had a little bit of that last year. Relievers are like that a lot, and it's not just Matt. It happens many times." So Ryan and his staff understand the volatile nature of the relief business. The small sample size and the over-reliance on certain arms can lead to a down year and thus the team may wind up overpaying for his services. Clearly, having watched Perkins come up through the system and understanding what he is capable of, the Twins must be more comfortable in his potential in order to dole out that kind of cheddar to a relief pitcher who has had one year on record of success.

@Paul -- Thanks. If you are someone who is looking to study pitching, hitter, etc to a more refined science, Pitch F/X is the mechanism that will help. If you are not familiar, pitch f/x is a system that MLB has implemented around the country that is made up of several cameras that capture each pitch release, tracks its path and how and where it crosses the plate. If you are not looking at this information already, I highly suggest you look into it. The summit is put on by SportsVision, the company that keeps all the data. They release the information and data to the public and a lot of very intelligent people conduct studies on that and have provided a lot of insight. One person, Mike Fast, was recently hired by the Houston Astros.

A few weeks ago I posted an article suggesting Liriano's 2012 success was very dependent on his fastball. The biggest difference between 2010 and 2011 was that (1) his velocity was down and (2) his control was off. Mechanical glitches and injuries were held responsible for the decline. His winter league did not hold too much promise that he had corrected any of this as his velocity was sub-90 and his command was well off base (walking 16 in 24 innings in the Dominican). However, after his second start of the spring, things are looking much better for his potential. Check out Joe Christensen's report: Again, to me, his fastball is the catalyst and foundation. If he's unable to throw it well, it does not matter how good his slider is. Knowing that it was between 91-and-95 and thrown regularly, that is a big step in the right direction.

@Paul -- Good points. And I feel a little bit like you do in terms of the rubber shifting being more of a mental exercise of being comfortable rather than something that changes anything too much. I don't have the information on hand but one of the recent pitch f/x summits had a study that showed that for every inch a player moved on the rubber closer to the same-sided hitter, the better they were at inducing a swing a miss -- or something similar to that. That may or may not be deception-based or simply being able to locate a pitch better (working the inner-half better) even if you just slide a half a foot over. He MIXED in an adequate slider but he really has not done so since 2009. In 2010, then-Indian Russell Branyan told Blackburn after the season that the team knew that he was unable to throw that pitch and they all sat on his sinker.

His slider was very good last year. According to Fangraphs.com's pitch value data, his slider was 9.9 runs above average -- 5th-best among qualified relievers. It's a very solid second pitch.

Personally, I don't care how you take it but the fact that we were just discussing the possibility of Giolito having the potential to injure his arm not three days before is...well, weird.

There's nothing smug about it. It's big news, hence, "Boom".

After making fun of it for a while, I read the Hunger Games. It was pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Huh. Weird.