Parker Hageman

Since his arrival we have heard the tale of Neil Allen’s ability to convince the young pitchers to harness the power of the change-up. From 2009 to 2014, the Rays outpaced everyone by deploying the change-up 14.5% of the time. Naturally, the narrative would be that Allen would come to Minnesota and bestow the same secrets on the Twins’ pitching staff. But, in terms of sheer total percentage of pitches thrown, this has not happened. While the usage is up slightly for Minnesota from 2014, even when accounting for Mike Pelfrey and Ricky Nolasco’s splitter preference the Twins pitching staff still trails well behind the rest of the league in 2015. So every other pitch is not a change-up. And pitchers like Phil Hughes have not greatly altered their pitch selections by learning a change-up. That said, the Twins have found great success on the occasions that they have used their change-ups this year. In 2014, hitters had their way with the Twins’ change-up. Opponents hit .288 (29th out of 30) and posted a hefty 747 OPS. While the rest of the league’s pitchers kept hitters to a .234 average, Kevin Correia (.357), Tommy Milone (.341), Trevor May (.259) and Kyle Gibson (.244) all found themselves above that mark. While Correia was recently released by the Phillies, Milone (.241), May (.215) and Gibson (.179) have reconnected with the pitch this year, posting significantly improved averages against on change-ups. At a collective .207, they now hold the fifth-lowest average against on the change-up. It was not just throwing more change-ups – it was using them under specific conditions. “That’s the one thing me and Neil really talked about a lot and I really wanted to work on was executing change-ups to righties,” said Gibson this past March. “It’s a pitch that looks really similar to my sinker when I have the same release point I think it’s something that is really going to help my sinker against righties.” Allen shared his theories and approach with the players in the spring. Everyone acknowledged they were on-board but no one with the Twins would divulge Allen’s secret recipe when it came to the change-up. From his perspective, when it came to the change-up catcher Kurt Suzuki said it is nice to have another finger to put down. Other pitchers echoed that mentality – the added bullet would be nice to have in the arsenal. Still, the chatter around the Twins camp was not that the change-up in and of itself was going to be the miracle out-pitch -- it was also going to set-up the miracle out-pitch. **** The Rays have been long known to be a savvy, smarter-than-you organization. Their front office is basically a Harvard bar with equations on the wall and ****. In The Extra 2%, baseball writer Jonah Keri documented how the organization’s analytics team running that ball club would stop at nothing to find any edge they could. Those findings were highlighted in obvious situations like the use of infield shifts or found when the Rays’ lineup would eschew the natural platoon advantage against pitchers who held quirky splits. The Wolves of Wall Street were now running a ball club with that same take-every-dollar attitude. They hired the sharpest minds and grabbed every scrap of data they could, compiled it into a proprietary database and studied it to ultimately move the needle to their advantage. In the spreadsheets and on the field, the Rays found that the change-up was a highly underutilized weapon. Change-ups fell out of vogue in the modern world as teams craved fastball velocity and wicked benders to put away hitters. Meanwhile there was value to be had for the teams that creatively applied change-ups. While most organizations avoided throwing change-ups to same-sided hitters, the Rays mandated it. “We’ve got a process that, when you hit Double-A, you’ve got to be able to throw your change-up to righties and left-handers, no matter what side you throw from,” Allen, then with the Rays organization, told Baseball Prospectus. “It’s become a weapon that we started a few years ago. There were a lot of guys coming to Triple-A that couldn’t throw their change-up for strikes righty-on-lefty or lefty-on-righty. The change is a great pitch if you utilize it [well], but we started getting into the philosophy that if it works opposite arm to opposite hitter, why don’t we start trying it righty-on-righty and lefty-on-lefty.” In the majors, the Rays paced the game with far more same-sided change-ups than the rest of the league -- but mainly in righty-to-righty situations. From 2009 to 2014, as the Minnesota Twins’ right-handed pitchers threw change-ups to right-handed hitters 5.3% of the mix, the Rays threw it a whopping 12.6% of their mix. Perhaps as a result, right-handed pitchers for the Rays held the right-handed hitters to a .243 average while the Twins finished last in that category with a .279 average. Since Allen’s hiring, the Twins have followed a similar pattern. Gibson has increased his usage of the change-up overall (from 12% to 17%) and much of that has come against right-handed hitters. In 2014, he threw the pitch to the same-side 1.5% of the time but uses it 14% of the time this year. Trevor May has thrown his change more to righties as well (from 9.9% to 13.2%). Milone, on the other hand, has thrown the pitch less against lefties this year than he has in the past. Despite flashing a solid change-up to David Ortiz in spring training, Milone has abandoned that pitch in favor of a cutter. The Rays southpaws were hesitant to throw the pitch to other lefties as well -- Rays lefty Matt Moore cited the left-handed hitter’s natural low swing plane as a deterrent to throwing to the same-side. What the Rays discovered is that not only is the change-up effective in same-sided circumstances, but the change-up is also potent when thrown consecutively. From 2009 to 2014, the Rays threw the most change-ups but they also threw the highest number of change-ups after change-ups. And when the Rays pitchers doubled up on change-ups -- which they did a MLB-high 32% of the time -- they held opponents to a .189 batting average against. The Rays stacked change-ups like no other team. But the idea wasn’t just to throw out two change-ups in a row. The idea was to hammer the bottom of the zone. **** In addition to the same-sided usage, the strategic sequencing with the change-up has played a significant role in Twins’ pitchers abilities to generate outs. “I know that he’s a little bit analytical but not really but the stuff that he tells me that I see from an analytical side and it’s stuff that makes a lot of sense,” Twins closer Glen Perkins said about his new pitching coach and the emphasis on the change-up this spring. “I talk to hitters when we are playing cards after the game or standing in the dugout or whatever and the kinda things they are thinking.... [Allen’s] thinking from a hitter’s perspective on it.” Although he personally doesn’t throw a change-up, he toys with it during warm-ups and thinks about having it ready in the event that his devastating fastball-slider combo ever fails him. Perkins, an analytical mind on the mound, was intrigued by Allen’s sales pitch on the chang-eup. The discussions in the clubhouse, in team meetings and during bullpen sessions are well and good, though applying the ideas into game situations can be tricky. In Tuesday night’s game against the Orioles, Gibson recorded three outs on the change-up, including a strikeout in the third of the right-handed Adam Jones. While that may have been just a line of code in the PitchF/X system, the righty-on-righty success was a noteworthy milestone to Gibson. In 2014, Gibson was attempting to incorporate more change-ups against righties when he found himself tangling with Jones in Baltimore. Jones timed a change-up to perfection and launched a long home run. That encounter, Gibson admitted, reduced his confidence in turning to the pitch against righties. But over the offseason and into the spring, Allen provided support for Gibson and pushed him to use the pitch more to righties. While the change-up led to three outs, Gibson also recorded six outs on the pitch after a changeup -- weak contact induced by throwing a follow-up pitch down in the zone. This has been what the Twins pitchers -- particularly Gibson, May and Milone -- have succeeded at all year. If the change-up fails to record an out, they have returned to the bottom of the zone with another pitch. Guys like Gibson and Milone have become out generators because they have followed this pattern and it is making their other pitches better. Allen’s guidance to Gibson was to throw his change-up more in circumstances when he would normally throw his slider. While Gibson’s change-up has had great success on its own, it has enhanced his slider’s performance as well, reducing his average against from .210 to .167 while increasing his swinging strikes on the pitch. For Milone, he has kept hitters off his fastball – posting a career-low .248 average against. Similarly, May’s fastball average against has gone from .333 to .287. Weaker contact has resulted in more outs, fewer base-runners and fewer runs.

Santana’s post-suspension tune-up with Rochester was impressive. Over the course of three starts, he worked 20.2 innings while allowing 17 hits (.227 batting average) and just four runs resulting in a 1.74 ERA. In his final two outings, both against the Red Sox’s Pawtucket affiliate, Santana faced several Major League caliber bats including Rusney Castillo and Allen Craig. The velocity was reportedly down to the late-80s/low-90s but he mixed in a slider and change to keep hitters off-balanced. With the excitement building within the team about Santana’s impending arrival, Provus asked the question of how the rotation will shape up once Santana returns and if the six-man rotation is on the table. “It’s one of the options we are looking at,” Molitor said regarding the shift to six in the rotation, “We have options but one of them would be to go ahead and insert Ervin there and give everybody an extra day and use all the starters we have until we get to that last game. Obviously the other route would be to take someone out and try to piece it together from there because of the rest that we will be able to have. Once we decide when where we are going to slot those guys in, we will trust it and go with it.” While Molitor seems open to the six-man idea, general manager Terry Ryan seems less receptive and is leaning towards replacing a current member of the rotation. “Things happen, we all know that,” Ryan told the Star Tribune. “Paul is very adept with connecting with players, I can tell you that. Most players will be very receptive. If I went to them, it might be a different story. It will be a tough decision for whoever winds up getting squeezed.” The New York Mets recently switched to the six-man rotation and the St. Louis Cardinals toyed with the idea this spring. Both team’s motivation was predicated on limiting innings to young arms as well as reducing the workload on rebuild arms like Matt Harvey. The Twins do not have the same scenario when it comes to rationing innings like the two NL teams did. Minnesota’s motivation would be to not remove any of the current starters who are performing serviceably across the board. The obvious reasoning is that it allows the Twins to showcase a pitcher as a trade candidate between now and the July 31 deadline but the other factors could be keeping their pitchers healthy and improving their performance. In 2014, Enos Sarris pointed out that the Japanese trend of using six-man rotations might be responsible for why Japan’s pitchers tend to have fewer instances with Tommy John surgery compared to their Major League counterparts. The data blog FiveThirtyEight.com’s Rob Arthur dug further into the hypothesis and found that pitchers who have four days of rest – like the standard five-man rotation have – will have a reported injury risk of one percent over the next two weeks after pitching. However, a shift to a full five days of rest – enjoyed by those in a six-man rotation – have a 0.8 percent chance of injury, a 20 percent decrease in comparison to the four-days of rest. The caveat, Arthur found, was that while the six-man prevented injuries to some degree, the nature of the injuries were comparable to those of the five-man. In short, while longer rest showed the ability to reduce the frequency of injuries, it did not reduce the risk for suffering major injuries such as UCL tears. Still, for a team over a 162-game schedule, keeping their core starting pitching healthy means fewer dead-arm spells that pitchers try to work through far too often before admitting something is wrong. But not everyone in the game is convinced the extra day between starts is better for the arm. Former MLB pitcher and current FOX Sports analyst CJ Nikowski spent time pitching in Asia and says his personal experience tells him that the notion that the six-man rotation saved arms in Japan is hogwash. “The problem with the notion of “they do it Asia” is that in the four years I spent pitching in both Korea and Japan, I saw more arm injuries than I did here,” Nitkowski wrote in February of this year. “I remember one day sitting in the bullpen and looking around at my teammates, every one of them had a significant arm injury at some point in their professional career.” While there are no numbers in Nitkowski’s post to determine if his gut model statement is true, Nitkowski cites the increase – some say even insane, per Twins pitcher Blaine Boyer – amounts of sideline throwing between starts and in spring training negates any effects the six-man rotation rest factor would play. Nitkowski also argued against the six-man structure because it would reduce the number of starts giving to a team’s high-paid ace. The Twins, however, lack any real “ace” caliber pitchers in the current rotation. Distributing the starts among six and keeping arms healthy for the latter portion of the season could ensure that all pitchers are fresh but it could also mean reducing the number of starts for those starters who are clicking. Like the small decrease in limiting the number of injuries, moving from a four-day to a five-day rest period also has a very minor increase in production. According to Baseball-Reference.com’s splits, pitchers who work on a four-day rest cycle have posted a 4.35 ERA since 2000 while those on a five-days of rest have turned in a 4.31 ERA. Over a 30-game span, if that performance maintains, that could be the difference in at least one run. It may be unlikely for the Twins to embrace the idea but If Santana is added to the core of Phil Hughes, Kyle Gibson, Mike Pelfrey, Tommy Milone and Trevor May for the starting six, it might be a very insightful decision by the Twins to maximize their current production…or it could be an innovative way to market a tradable commodity.

Age: 21 2015 Stats (AA/MLB): .270/.336/.460 (.795), 8-2B, 13-3B, 6-HR, 28/68 BB/K ETA: 2015 2015 Preseason Ranking: 1 What's To Like The speed is absolutely breathtaking. While a mashed tater hit a country mile gives one pause as it clears the fence and drops into the sea of waiting arms, there is nothing that compares to when a player with top-flight speed slashes one into the gap and is off to the races. Buxton’s first major league hit, a stand-up triple no less, proved that point. In the field, Buxton closes faster than a Canadian Target. According to ESPN/TruMedia, in just under 100 innings in center, Buxton already recorded 10 good fielding plays including this absolute dart at 93 miles per hour (per StatCast) to nail Melky Cabrera at home: https://twitter.com/ParkerHageman/status/613200073954979840 In short, Buxton can score runs and he can take them away. What's Left To Work On Terry Ryan was quick to point out that Buxton was not a finished product when he was called up to Minnesota. “I would have liked to keep Buxton down (at Chattanooga) for more at-bats,” Ryan told the Pioneer Press a week prior to Buxton’s thumb injury. “But it wasn’t meant to be, so here he is.” In Chattanooga, shortly after Buxton’s big league debut manager Doug Mientkiewicz exercised similar caution regarding his promotion in a chat with FOX Sport’s Ken Rosenthal. “I don’t think he’s completely ready,” Mientkiewicz told the bow-tied baseball writer. “Well, part of me says yes, and part of me says no.” Previously, the Looksouts manager was more emphatic about what he wanted for Buxton’s immediate future. “I would like to see him here the whole year, and that has nothing to do with me as a manager,” Mienkiewicz told the Times Free Press in early May, “I want to see him have success, and too many times in baseball and in general today, these kids have a good two weeks and they move them. They are going to play a long time, so let them build that huge snowball of confidence to where nothing can deter them once they struggle again.” Mientkiewicz had seen what others had not first-hand – a professional-grade slider presented a challenge to the game’s top prospect. However, in the Southern League, that quality of pitch is harder to find; the major league level would be another story. It became keenly obviously after watching pitchers deploy sliders at a steady clip that Buxton was not fully prepared for the competition. The reports on Buxton is that he has speed bumps at the introductory point at each level. In Double-A this year, his first series began with nine strikeouts over four games. He adjusted and struck out in just 42 plate appearances over the last 54 games. "I feel pretty good," Buxton told The Chattanoogan in early June. "I've been taking better at-bats. I've been laying off pitches early in the year I was swinging at. It's put me in position to drive the ball into the gaps more." In addition to reducing the strikeouts, Buxton also slugged over .500 -- .505 to be exact – so the hope is, once healthy, he will adjust to pitching at the highest level of the game as well. What's Next Buxton’s thumb injury will cost him at least a month according to manager Paul Molitor. There may be some rehab time involved that will give him some opportunity to experience AAA pitching – a less electrifying brand of pitching than in the majors but loaded with arms that have major league experience and ability to locate pitches better than their lower level counterparts. Once he returns, his speed and glove will help stabilize the middle of the outfield and it will only be a matter of time before the speed and bat play a significant role at the top of the order as well.

The numbers all look convincing enough to believe that Meyer will play an effective role as a reliever going forward. When the Twins opted to send Meyer to the bullpen, he owned a 1.91 WHIP. While he was striking out plenty of batters, the others were either getting hits or walking. Velocity was never an issue for Meyer, who routinely reached 98 on the gun, but commanding pitches in the zone became the focus in 2015. Too often, Meyer’s fastball would fly down the middle or his breaking ball would hang. By the definition of the zone, they were strikes but they were also very hittable. According to the Durham Bulls broadcasters, their players said that compared to 2014, Meyer’s fastball was flat and that it lacked movement that it had the previous year. His command also was an issue since once he was behind in the count, they did not have to anticipate the knuckle-curve. This was reminiscent of Francisco Liriano’s plight from 2012 in which he was unable to locate his fastball and hitters simply laid off his nasty slider. In his final start, Meyer faced Durham and in just over four innings, the Bulls’ lineup knocked out seven hits of him. They waited patiently as he progressed deeper into counts by missing his spots and made him throw 109 pitches on his way to another early exit. Six days later, Rochester was in Durham, North Carolina and Meyer had moved to the bullpen. The move was made in order for Meyer to find consistency with his fastball and to attempt to regain his biting curve ball which had lost the break it had had a year ago. It also was a move to alleviate the pressure he applied to the relief corps each time his start was truncated. Meyer acknowledged that his arm slot had dropped since the end of 2014. Now in the pen, he told the Rochester broadcasting team that he would be concentrating on getting that release point back up to improve his movement. While some pitching prospects might find the switch troublesome on the ego, Meyer seemed to transition smoothly. In his first outing in relief, Meyer worked a clean 1-2-3 eighth inning against the Bulls -- the team which had less than a week earlier knocked him out of the starting rotation. Meyer worked quickly, getting strikes within the first two pitches of each at-bat. His fastball was humming at 96 and touching 97. He deployed a short break slider at significantly slower speed to register his first two outs and blasted a 97 mile per hour fastball above the zone for a swinging strike for the final out. READ: TD MIDSEASON TOP PROSPECT #10 - ALEX MEYER It was something that every bullpen needs -- someone to be able to throw late innings, bat-missing heat. When Rochester hosted a wrestling night at the beginning of June, all the relievers were given WWE wrestling persona’s that matched their demeanor on the mound. Meyer -- who is also called White Missile by his teammates -- was given The Undertaker, a wrestler who dominated in the ring and stole the souls of his opponents. The character fit well for Meyer’s new role. "While I'm in the bullpen, it's go get 'em,” Meyer told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. “Do whatever you have to do to get them out. I'm just trying to go out there and attack every batter. Get one batter out at a time and try not to over-analyze things any more than that." By the eye test, he looked comfortable going through the motions of a short outing. He leaned on his fastball but was sure to work his knuckle-curve in several times. In fact, he leaned on his curve too much in his first few relief outings. In his first outing, Meyer found himself up 0-1 in the count and shook off his catcher, Josmil Pinto, in order to throw back-to-back curves (both for balls and well off-target). He returned to his fastball and got two swinging strikes: one on the inner-half of the plate and another above the strike zone to finish the hitter off. In another outing, Meyer turned to his curve too frequently in two-strike situations. In four of the nine matchups against Lehigh Valley on June 2, he threw the bender three pitches in a row -- one of which, on a 3-2 count, facilitated a bases-loaded rally that Meyer somehow eventually wiggled out of. Although he appeared to overuse and misfire with the curve early, Meyer also tightened it up in his subsequent outings. The break appeared sharper and able to generate swinging strikes again. Upon his promotion, Red Wings beat writer Kevin Oklobzija highlighted Meyer’s improvement with the curve as a function why he was successful in the pen. https://twitter.com/ParkerHageman/status/614436381432004608 During several broadcasts, announcers remarked how “confident” Meyer looked in his new role. His second appearance out of the bullpen on May 25 was all business. The Red Wings needed one out in the sixth inning and they called on a pitcher who could get a strikeout. Meyer threw four pitches -- all fastballs, all on the outer-half of the zone. While the umpire did not agree that the first one was a strike, the next three were placed in the same spot and were all deemed strikes. At that speed, in that location, the hitter stood little chance of doing anything. In his final outing before being recalled to Minnesota, Meyer worked effectively against the Pawtucket Red Sox. Despite allowing an inherited run to score, he was locating his 95+ fastball with precision and deploying a large breaking ball that buckled several knees. Rather than just throwing the curve when up in the count, Meyer also used it to get ahead of hitters and in even-count situations, making him and his fastball even more difficult to hit. Between the two pitches Meyer looked every bit the part of a major league shutdown reliever. In all Meyer has the raw stuff to be dominant at times. Most critical is working ahead of hitters. Even in relief, he showed signs of struggling to locate his fastball and was occasionally helped by opponents who would chase pitches.

Other topics include trying to catch a foul ball, Father's Day, concerts at Lambeau Field, a new name for the Vikings stadium and baseball card reminiscing. Listen below, on iTunes or on Stitcher: NO JUICE PODCAST, EPISODE #60: PLUS AND MINUS

When new ownership shook up the organization, they hired Red Sox architect Theo Epstein away from Boston and initiated one of the largest youth movements since the baby boom. They are built for the long haul with a supremely talented group of younger players and are led on the field by one of the game's greatest modern tacticians: Joe Maddon. Here are some of the key young players you need to keep an eye on this weekend: Anthony Rizzo - 25 - 1B Ok, so he’s not young or recently called up. Now on his fifth season at the major league level he’s basically the team’s resident advisor. Under Epstein, the Red Sox drafted Rizzo out of high school but traded him to San Diego in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez. After Epstein moved to the Cubs, he re-acquired Rizzo in 2012 and he has entrenched himself at Wrigley as the starting first baseman and elder statesmen of the team. He gets on base a lot and plenty of that has to do with taking one for the team. Between this year and last, Rizzo has been hit by the pitch 29 times, the most in baseball. He has also shown some impressive power even if it is with some unorthodox swings. http://i.imgur.com/mAofukC.gif Kris Bryant - 23 - 3B Selected two spots in front of the Twins’ Kohl Stewart in the first round of the 2013 draft, Bryant quickly made a name for himself by hitting 43 home runs split between two levels in 2014. After the controversy over the service time when the Cubs kept him in Iowa for the first few weeks of the season, Bryant arrived and has hit .295/.398/.488 with eight home runs including this moonshot that traveled 477 feet according to StatCast -- tied for 5th furthest hit ball all year. http://i.imgur.com/wXcQurA.gif Kyle Schwarber - 22 - C/DH Selected by the Cubs in the first round of the 2014 draft, one slot ahead of the Twins’ Nick Gordon, this Indiana University product ascended Chicago’s system quickly. Loaded with power, Schwarber led the Southern League this year in slugging percentage just ahead of Minnesota’s Adam Brett Walker and Max Kepler. Reportedly a bat with power to all fields, the young catcher had that on display in Cleveland on Thursday when he hit his first major league home run. http://i.imgur.com/VGof5ZN.gif Addison Russell - 21 - 2B Acquired for Jeff Samardjiza trade with Oakland, Russell was a former 11th overall pick in 2012 -- the same year as Byron Buxton -- and was summoned to the bigs in late April. Russell has packed some punch with his bat and has been above average so far but his glove has been critically important at the up-the-middle slot. According to BillJamesOnline.net, Russell has been worth +8 runs in the field, the third best among all second basemen. http://i.imgur.com/EUMHMDz.gif For the Cubs, the future isn’t some distant, future-Delorean away, it’s now. That is why they are aggressively promoting their top talent in order to compete in the competitive NL Central. Fortunately for you, you can head on down to Target Field this weekend to watch some of these top athletes at work.

Age: 22 (DOB: 02/10/1993) 2015 Stats (A+/AA): 201 PA, .322/.383/.507 (891 OPS), 3 HR, 5 3B, 19 2B, 28/21 K/BB ETA: 2016 2014 Preseason Ranking: N/A -- 2015 Preseason Ranking: 12th Intro Kepler has been in the Twins system since 2009 when he signed for $800,000 as a teenager. It has been a slow climb for the outfielder/first baseman, who is now in his sixth season in the minors. Limited by an elbow injury in 2013, he witnessed his numbers tumble in Cedar Rapids. Kepler cited the fact that his top hand was weakened by the long rehabilitation process as a reason he struggled to drive the ball. That continued into the 2014 season at High-A in the Florida State League (a notoriously pitcher-friendly environment) as he started slow again but finished with a .307/.367/.451 line in his final 170 plate appearances after July 4th, signaling that his arm might finally be 100 percent again. What’s To Like This. https://twitter.com/twinsdaily/status/610523699943321601 That is an athletic swing that can generate plenty of hard hit balls. Since May 10, Kepler has compiled a .364/.430/.598 line in 149 plate appearances including 24 extra base hits and a well-balanced 16/17 walks-to-strikeouts ratio. "I've been seeing the ball pretty well," Kepler told MiLB.com's Robert Emrich recently. "I feel like I'm getting my foot down early, load and getting all that stuff out of the way, so I don't have much to think about; it's all coming fluid. All I have to do is see the ball, hit the ball, and it's working for me right now. While his power has not manifested in home runs, the gap power has resulted in an overall sluggng that is third in the Southern League behind Cubs' prospect Kyle Schwarber (who has since been promoted to the majors) and the Twins' powerhouse Adam Brett Walker. What’s Left To Work On Consistent production against left-handed pitching would serve him well. In 2011 he actually fared better against the sinister hurlers, hitting .351 in 45 plate appearances. When asked about his experience against lefties that season, Kepler told Hein News in a 2011 interview that "I always have the thought in the back of my head that lefty versus lefty is going to be tough. So I don’t know. Maybe I am more focused and stay more inside against lefties. But I seem to hit ‘em well.' But that was not always be the case. In 2013, perhaps because of the weakened arm strength, he hit just .117 against lefties, raising concerns that he might not be geared towards handling the better left-handed competition as he ascended the ranks. Nevertheless, that improved to .273 in 2014 and he is hitting at a robust .333 clip against them this year. "I think for some reason I've always thought that lefties are tougher to face and stuff, and I got rid of that thought this year," Kepler told Emrich last week. "It's just a ball coming from a different angle. I'm going to stick with that; it's working right now." Finding him a position in the field would be useful as well. Evaluators have said his outfield instincts have played well but with his arm strength he may be more suited for left field over right. He's spent the bulk of his time playing first base with Chattanooga this year which feels like a crowded pipeline at the major league level. What's Next? Rochester is the next logical step for the prospect as their outfield depth has been looted by the parent club and the first base position could use some help. Beyond this year is the real question. Provided Kepler can find a position, the Twins have few left-handed hitters in the system who can hit for power, making him a valuable commodity. Unfortunately there are two in Oswaldo Arcia (24) and Eddie Rosario (23) that qualify and are ahead of him on the depth chart, potentially blocking his path to Minnesota. Kepler's almost too athletic for first and lacks the home run power that should be associated with playing that position (oh, the Joe Mauer-laced irony). If he continues to hit like he has been, the Twins will need to make some serious decisions.