Parker Hageman

Right. Those are the pickoffs as in either a pitcher throws to first when a runner takes off or steps off and catches the runner going to another base. For some reason the catcher gets credit as well.

I'm not away of anyone keeping track of pickoff attempts. Would be a good one to track to see if there are catchers more likely to snap throw down to first.

Technically, he threw out 2 base-runners (the other three with pick-off/caught stealing that counts in the overall total) and one of the two he threw out was a botched hit-and-run by Oakland.

Revisited some of the film on Pinto on pitches that were in the zone but got called a ball or borderline pitches that were not called strikes but other catchers had coaxed a strike call. There are clearly some mannerisms that he does that might dissuade the umpire's decision. You see that his glove moves a lot when receiving it and, in the case of some borderline pitchers, he showed a propensity towards moving the glove back towards the zone. My belief is that an umpire needs to call the pitch where it crossed but there is a grey area -- not to mention pitch movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZBT2ub-OHM Bigger picture, I really enjoyed this interview with a former MLB umpire who basically said it shouldn't be called "framing" it should be called "catching correctly": Speaking to that last part, you see Pinto do that a lot: Catch the low borderline pitch with a downward stab and then bring it back up. Maybe I'll post about this tomorrow with some examples.

Joe Vavra caught two games in his minor league career. Apparently, he's in charge of the catchers this year: https://twitter.com/LaVelleNeal/status/569885881206616064 https://twitter.com/MillerStrib/status/570284978564501504

Of all those numbers, only the last one really applies.

I mean, he certainly moves well for a big guy: https://vine.co/v/hOIdXahbuPu

I will still argue the "how important" (i.e. the value metric) is still up for debate but when a pitcher like Glen Perkins calls out your framing skills then I think that skill definitely needs work:

Fairly certain it was a little bit of everything. He had been in an 14-for-70 (.200) slide since the beginning of May and Kendrys Morales' addition gave the Twins a DH option. I can't find Ryan's comments at that time but these were Gardenhire's response:

When camp opened, the Minnesota Twins’ manager Paul Molitor discussed the grim realities of the team’s inabilities to stop opponents from stealing bases. The game, he believes, has shifted to one that focuses on speed rather than power. Stopping the other team from turning a single into a double was going to be a point of emphasis heading into 2015. Last year, when veteran catcher Kurt Suzuki was not behind the plate, opponents stole at will off the Twins’ battery. Central to those stolen bases was rookie backstop Josmil Pinto. While he was behind the plate runners went 20-for-20 in stolen base attempts, by far the highest number of bases swiped in MLB without recording an out. But here’s the question: Was Pinto’s run defense that bad?Last season started off on the right foot. Last spring training he and pitcher Jared Burton would combined to take down the Blue Jay’s Anthony Gose -- who would go on to swipe 15 on 20 attempts. The mechanics were nearly flawless as he received and transitioned in almost one motion. When the regular season started, it was Gose in Minnesota who would test Pinto first. With Mike Pelfrey delivering a 89-mile per hour two-seamer, Gose beats Pinto’s throw to second by a small margin. The replay shows a strong throw that is nanoseconds late. Mechanically, Pinto repeats the same motion as seen below. Download attachment: Gose_4.17_GOTHEEM.png Download attachment: Gose_4.17_MISS.png It would be during his next attempt at nailing a runner that things went go awry for Pinto. Two days after his near-hit with Gose, the Twins were in Kansas City fending off a Royals rally. With Nori Aoki on second and Omar Infante on first with one out, Kevin Correia delivered to the plate and both Royal runners scampered. Kansas City demonstrated the highest tendency to take third in 2014 (they went 29-for-36) and the Twins appeared to have the situation measured. With the left-handed batting Eric Hosmer at the plate, Pinto had a clear line to third and had Aoki, the lead runner, by multiple steps. However. Pinto unleashed a throw that was airmailed to Omaha. All Plouffe could do was feign a leaping attempt while the ball sailed well over his head, allowing Aoki to score, putting the Royals up 5-to-2 in the fourth. http://i.imgur.com/IIy8HBd.gif For the most part, everything is going in the right direction for Pinto on this play. His footwork is good and the arm action is strong but his release is off. The Twins would scratch and claw back to 5-4 but the one run would be the difference-maker between losing 92 games and losing just 91 games. Maybe it was lack of confidence or maybe it was just inevitable but from that point forward, Pinto’s throwing unraveled. Runners had gone six-for-six against Pinto by May 31 though it could have easily have been 4-for-6 if either the Gose or Aoki play went slightly different. (I guess you could also says that if things had gone slightly different I may have been the one dating Katie Upton. Make believe is fun.) From May 1 to May 31, Pinto had gone six games without anyone challenging him on the bases. That would change against the Yankees. In the bottom of the eighth and the game tied at one apiece, Twins reliever Brian Duensing allowed a one-out single to speedster Jacoby Ellsbury. The reigning 2013 AL thief would get a fairly substantial jump on the left-handed Duensing, taking advantage of an offspeed pitch: Download attachment: Ellsburg_5.31_jump2.png The pitch came in low, which Pinto backhanded on his knees, and proceeded to throw the ball while kneeling. Download attachment: Ellsburg_5.31_SB1.png Download attachment: Ellsburg_5.31_SB2.png While ugly, Pinto was able to get off a strong throw that nearly nabbed Ellsbury. It was an impressive feat considering the jump Ellsbury got, the pitch he chose to run on and the location where Pinto had to catch it. In all, some catchers might opt to eat that base. The throw, however, hit Ellsbury in the leg on his slide and skipped into center field, allowing him to trot into third base. Download attachment: Ellsburg_5.31_SB3.png The following series sparked a line of bad throws as the Brewers took advantage of Pinto’s inability to stop the run game. In Milwaukee on June 3rd, Brewers’ shortstop Jean Segura took second after a swinging strikeout and a subsequent throw by Pinto that skipped well short of the base. Yet it was Twins’ pitcher Samuel Deduno who should probably shoulder some blame for the stolen base in that situation. Runners found the erratic Deduno to be the perfect patsy as they ran roughshod on him on the season (10-for-10). Download attachment: Segura_6.3_jump.png Download attachment: Segura_6.3_receive.png When the border battle series returned to Minnesota a couple days later, the Brewers once again took advantage of Pinto’s throwing. First it was the large Mark Reynolds who would take second -- selecting a Caleb Thielbar curveball to run on -- as Pinto’s throw traveled off target. Later that inning Jean Segura took another base on a first-pitch curve that Ryan Braun even stepped away from and gave Pinto a clean throwing lane. If Pinto had a hint of a fighting chance to stop Segura, it was killed by his 123-foot offline throw. Download attachment: Segura_6.5_receive.png Download attachment: Segura_6.5_throw.png The Brewers had demonstrated an uncanny knack for running on breaking and offspeed pitches. All four bases Milwaukee swindled from under Pinto’s watch came on non-fastballs -- certainly a disadvantage for the catcher -- but bringing his season total to 0-for-13 nonetheless. The young backstop was entering rare territory. Just a handful of catchers had accumulated that many attempts without throwing out at least one runner in a season. Following the Milwaukee series, the Twins set out to study and analyze film while bench coach Terry Steinbach revisited his mechanics. The film study likely reflected a lot of what is seen above: Opponents were able to select favorable pitches to run on and Pinto's throws were becoming increasingly offline. Whatever the film said and whatever Steinbach offered as advice did not help. In his next game behind the plate against the Astros he was once again picked apart. The eventual 2014 AL stolen base winner Jose Altuve added two bags off of pitcher Deduno and Pinto. Based on his jumps and Deduno’s inability to keep his close, Pinto stood small chance of succeeding in throwing him out on either attempt. Robbie Grossman would tack one on as well. Download attachment: Altuva_6.8_throw.png When the Twins signed Kendrys Morales midseason, they pointed to Pinto’s lowly offensive production, his pitch framing and throwing woes as reason to send him back to Rochester. “This is the right thing to do,” manager Ron Gardenhire told reporters after they announced Pinto’s demotion. “He definitely has to work on some things (defensively). He’s been getting a little sloppy trying to set his feet for throws and not framing the ball. There’s issues here, and this is going to help him. This kid has a chance to be a starting catcher, not a backup catcher. We believe in his offense.” When he was recalled from Rochester in September, the streak continued as runners went unhindered to the next base. On September 5, Angels’ Mike Trout took second base effortlessly on a Ricky Nolasco 80-mile per hour curve. Later that game Trout possibly aided teammate Kole Calhoun’s thievery by loitering too long over home plate: Download attachment: CalhounTrou_9.5.png Download attachment: CalhounTrou_9.5_SB.png Would a clear throwing lane have allowed Pinto to make a better throw? As the season progressed there was no doubt that Pinto’s throws were growing steadily worse. The last attempt, trying to thwart Detroit’s Austin Romine at second, sailed heavily to the second base side of the bag. Download attachment: Romine_9.28_SB.png The video review of Pinto’s throws (with the exception of three early season attempts that are lost in the internet ether) shows a trend of offline attempts. Overall, Pinto’s footwork and mechanics do not seem terrible. He threw often with a closed foot but that is a trait that was shared by the Padres’ Rene Rivera, who had the best base-kill rates among catchers in 2014. Compared to Rivera’s howitzer (or even teammate Kurt Suzuki’s arm) Pinto’s arm strength at times appeared weak. Perhaps Pinto’s offseason shoulder injury played a substantial role in his throwing. What is expected out of Pinto for this season? Depends on who you ask. Pinto claims his main purpose for playing in the winter leagues this offseason was to focus on the defensive skills. "That's the first reason I went to Venezuela," Pinto told MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger. "I wanted to catch a couple games and improve my defense. It was the first year I played a complete season. So it was good." Manager Paul Molitor seems to favor his offensive potential and does not think Pinto’s defense was necessarily the disaster the data suggests. He believes his defensive miscues were a product of mental struggles. “I saw him vastly improve when he was with [manager] Jeff Smith in Double-A,” Molitor told reporters in camp this year. “t was like a hitter going into a slump. He was unsuccessful a couple of times, so you try to get quicker and your arm slot changes. There were a couple of times he came out for early work, which is a good thing, but he had trouble with his accuracy. So it got a little mental for him.” In a recent Q&A with Fox Sports North, General Manager Terry Ryan echoed Molitor’s assessment of Pinto, saying that his 2014 demotion was based on his offense and not his inability to control the run game. Ryan also believed he saw improvement out of Pinto in his stint in Rochester. The Twins have clearly invested the bulk of the catching time in Kurt Suzuki but with his offensive potential and need to give the aging Suzuki more time off the Twins need Pinto to contribute in all aspects in 2015. Click here to view the article

On this week's No Juice Podcast Dan Anderson and Parker Hageman review the happenings from around the baseball world. Glen Perkins lobbying for jobs. The Minnesota catcher struggle is real. Weird spring training injuries. Overzealous updates from the media. It is all here. Listen up.Other topics include the ruling on Adrian Peterson and Kevin Garnett's return to Minnesota. Oh, and Dan had a baby. Listen below, on iTunes or on Stitcher: NO JUICE PODCAST, EPISODE #45: SPRING TRAINING UPDATES Check out this special No Juice presentation of the current state of Minnesota professional sports mashed up with the latest promo from Mad Men: Click here to view the article

You mean like this? http://m.mlb.com/min/video/topic/63817564/v35862217/minbal-orioles-challenge-out-confirmed-in-5th/?c_id=min

If one were to highlight the utter banality of baseball’s month of February, a simple action in a spring training complex back field -- featuring grown men who mime a throw to the plate, speed-jog fifty feet from the middle of the diamond to step on first base and receive an underhand toss -- might suffice. The act is then repeated without end until the pitchers are dreaming of breaking towards first in their sleep. That’s the goal anyway.It may appear boring to both the participants and onlookers alike, but drilling in spring training is likely favored over some of the original methods for ensuring pitchers take responsibility for covering first base. In the late 1880s, the first baseman began to position themselves away from the base and closer to where they are today. This new positioning caused issues due to the fact that first basemen were now playing back to cover more ground and were beat when racing to the bag. This then became the pitchers’ responsibility to get to the base. Instinctively, pitchers shied away from the added cardio and stayed at the mound. According to the book A Game Of Inches, at that time the Cardinals’ owner and first baseman Charles Comiskey admitted he would field the ball from his position and, if his pitcher failed to man the base, Comiskey would throw the ball to the unattended base regardless. “[T]he crowd saw who was to blame, and pretty soon pitchers got into the habit of running over rapidly rather than be roasted,” Comiskey said. Even after several years it still had not sunk in with pitchers to beeline it to first base if the ball was hit to their left. In 1905, following a Washington Post article that described the acts of the the team’s pitchers not covering the base the previous season as acts of “stupidity or indifference”, the Washington Senators became one of the earliest recorded team to implement fielding practice for pitchers in spring training so they would be confident the first baseman could “play a deep field and feel certain that the pitcher will go over and take his throws.” In many ways, the residuals of the old Senators practices carried over when the franchise moved to Minnesota. When Jack Morris arrived at the newly minted Lee County Sports Complex in the spring of 1991, the veteran pitcher encountered Twins manager Tom Kelly’s brand of tirelessly drilling on the fundamentals. According to Season of Dreams, after camp ended Morris told reporters that he covered first base more times in his first spring with the Twins in Florida than he had in 14 years with the Detroit Tigers. A hundred years later the tradition continues in Fort Myers with the new generation of pitchers pantomiming their delivery to the plate and trotting off towards first. You would think that over the course of a century modern pitchers would have realized that first basemen are no longer tethered to the base. In fact, some believe that the time spent on drilling this is a waste. As Angels pitcher CJ Wilson told MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez, “I'd rather spend the time going over strategies and pitching techniques than do PFP,” Wilson said in 2011. “It's just boring."(1) Boring or not, the Twins value pounding the fundamentals into their players -- even if it is based on a practice that originated 100 years ago. It can pay dividends; take Twins’ pitcher Kyle Gibson for instance. In 2015, Gibson led all major league pitchers with 30 putouts. In many ways the pitcher putouts at first are much like RBI totals -- they are all about opportunity. A right-handed ground ball pitcher is likely going to induce more opportunities than a fly ball pitcher or a left-handed pitcher. Likewise, a pitcher needs a first baseman who will not finish the job himself. Two reasons that Gibson’s totals led baseball was: 1) he had one of the highest number of grounders in a first baseman’s zone and 2) his first baseman was unfamiliar with the position. That being said, Gibson’s reaction time on those plays is impressive. Beating a path from the mound to the bag presents challenges. First is taking the right route, the second is finding the base and the third is receiving the throw. And sometimes that does not go as smoothly as rehearsed: http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4386775/dozier.gif Though second baseman Brian Dozier rightfully receives credit for making a fine play, Gibson’s ability adjust to the throw should be acknowledged. It may seem mundane but the repetition may help avoid disastrous situations like the one Tim Hudson experienced in Atlanta where improper footwork and terrible timing led to ankle surgery for the veteran pitcher: Sorry if you were eating lunch. It is hard to say what exactly makes a pitcher “good” at covering first base. Is it the muscle memory established in camp? Is it natural athleticism? Or is it handedness that provides the right-handed pitchers who fall off towards first base the advantage? The answer is all of the above but with emphasis on the latter. Yes, the seed is planted in Florida or Arizona which helps trigger the pitcher’s reaction at the crack of the bat. Beyond that, being born right-handed provides the benefits of both facing more left-handed batters who are more likely to hit the ball to first base as well as having a step or two edge over their southpaw’d counterparts. In another hundred years we will all be dead and gone but the PFP is bound to live on. According to ESPN/TruMedia data, the average left-handed starting pitcher saw 28 ground ball plays in the first baseman’s zone. Maybe Wilson is on to something. In the grand scheme it does seem silly to concentrate so much time towards an act that occurs less than one time per start. Why not invest more of the left-handed staff’s time in other areas? Click here to view the article

On one hand, it seems to me to be the cost of living the dream. Internships and apprenticeships in various other industries pay next to nothing as well. On the other hand, this is a $9 billion dollar industry now. Stands to reason that some increase is pay is merited. Beyond that, it is something that could provide a competitive advantage to the team that does that. Often, the low-paid prospects -- frequently the ones in the later rounds of the draft or college grads -- are forced to find offseason work in order to cover the cost of living. The high draft picks and guys that get healthy bonuses are able to work or not work as they choose. The working players have less time dedicated towards conditioning and improving their play. Maybe in some cases players are already tabbed as "organization filler" by the front office but every so often that type of player winds up making an impact. If a team is able to provide just a bit more to cover the player year-round, then there may be better returns later.

What is life like on the bus and trying to make it on a minor league paycheck? On this week's No Juice Podcast Dan Anderson and Parker Hageman talk with former Twins' farmhand AJ Pettersen on his experience in the bus leagues. Pettersen peels back the curtain on minor league life. He teaches us all how to survive on $5 a day. Listen up.Listen below, on iTunes or on Stitcher: NO JUICE PODCAST, EPISODE #44: MINOR LEAGUE LIFE WITH AJ PETTERSEN Click here to view the article

With the Minnesota Twins' pitchers and catchers reporting to camp today, we have a video special presentation: Real Stories. The first subject is former Twins pitcher Cole DeVries. DeVries shares the highs and lows of his major league career. Watch below.Earlier in the off-season, DeVries sat down with the No Juice Podcast to discuss his experience with Ron Gardenhire, Rick Anderson and coming up through the minor league system. In this video, the former Twins pitcher talks about his career -- from stepping on the field for the first time to facing a potent Texas Ranger lineup to what life is like after the game. This will hopefully be the first of many Real Stories from people in and around the game. We would love to produce more videos but we need input from viewers like you. Please leave feedback below. Click here to view the article

I had done so in 2013 but the switch over to the new system has lost the GIF clips. I was in support of making adjustments to his high school swing -- lots of movement, etc -- in retrospect, I would like to have seen a big more engagement out of the lower half. http://imageshack.com/a/img809/1010/4gl.gif It is simple, balanced and repeatable. Going to get a ton of hits, maximize contact, etc. It just seems to lack the lower-half power. I know it would cost him some contact/base hits, but I would like to see something close to Adam Jones' approach. http://www.baseball-intellect.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/adam-jones.gif All in all, I want to watch more clips of him. Everything is very limited. Whatever was working for him in Cedar Rapids seemed to be the right path but the Twins felt that he would not succeed with that approach moving up the latter. Would love to talk to their instructors on the reasoning they had for it. Either way, here's more on the subject of his swing progression from Class-A to High-A in 2013: http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/242945961.html

Yeah, we called it "flip" when we played -- here is a video of the Mariners doing it: Both? I think the belief is that he will grow into being a 20+ HR hitter like Hunter did once he matures.

Sort of reminds me of what neuroscouting in the Boston Red Sox's organization found in regards to Mookie Betts: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/16971-red-sox-using-neuroscouting/. I'm guessing Buxton would do well with these tests as well. Talking about his hit tool, I'm also starting to wonder if he will lose some HR power potential with the adjustments the Twins are making. When he was drafted, he was using his lower half a lot and now they've removed any semblance of a stride. The desired results appear to be working on his ability to make constant contact and putting the ball in play rather than pulling/driving it far.