Andrew Bryz-Gornia

So many people in the comments have given up on Wallner while he still has a 118 wRC+ this season (tied with Harrison Bader for 2nd on the team, min. 100 PA).

Entering the 2025 season, the Twins were expecting great things from Matt Wallner. “The Pride of Forest Lake” had a 143 wRC+ (.251/.366/.500) in just over a full season’s worth of games, showing enough promise that the Twins were willing to part with longtime right fielder Max Kepler. He even took over one of Kepler’s primary spots in the batting order as the team’s leadoff hitter to start this season and rewarded the organization’s faith in him by hitting .263/.373/.474 (138 wRC+) until he was sidelined by a strained hamstring on April 15th. From his return to the active roster on May 31st to July 2nd, Wallner looked more like Joey Gallo than classic Wallner. While the power was still present (.244 ISO), his batting average plummeted (.156), leading to a 77 wRC+ and for calls to demote him to Triple-A. However, it was notable that his struggles did not coincide with an increase of strikeouts. A big man with big power, striking out in over 30% of his plate appearances has been the tradeoff for being a threat to go deep every time he steps up to the dish. While a slump to start the 2024 season included striking out in over half of his plate appearances, this season’s decline featured a strikeout rate just below 30%. Wallner’s problem wasn’t a lack of contact, it was a lack of hard contact. The good news is that Wallner appears to have righted his ship without taking a detour to St. Paul, as he’s been hitting .239/.340/.522 (139 wRC+) in his last 15 games. What’s puzzling is that a big part of Wallner’s game is still missing, though. During his 2023 season, Twins Daily writer Matt Braun labeled Wallner a “Hit By Pitch Savant.” At the time the article was written, “Cement Bones” had amassed 12 plunkings in just 49 games, and finished with 13 in 76 games. Despite only appearing in roughly half of the season’s games, his hit-by-pitch tally was just 2 behind Donovan Solano for the team lead, who achieved 15 while needing 58 additional games. Wallner’s 2024 season was similar as he was drilled 16 times in just 75 games, yet once again was only good for second place as Willi Castro accumulated 21 in over double the playing time. If that wasn’t enough evidence, his rate of beanings is where Wallner really shined. While he’s not atop any hit-by-pitch leaderboards because of his injuries and slumps taking away playing time, he’s still rivaled his contemporaries when we look at his ratios. From 2022-2024, Ty France led MLB with 68 hits-by-pitch, which equals 1 HBP per 6.4 games, or 1 HBP per 26.7 PA. Here, we see the Top 10 (or 11, as there’s a 3-way tie for 8th) over Wallner’s first three partial seasons. MLB Hit By Pitch Leaders by Volume, 2022-2024 Player Games Plate Appearances Times Hit By Pitch G/HBP PA/HBP Ty France 438 1813 68 6.4 26.7 Andrés Giménez 451 1806 60 7.5 30.1 Mark Canha 404 1511 58 7.0 26.1 Randy Arozarena 458 1947 51 9.0 38.2 Willson Contreras 322 1340 49 6.6 27.3 Pete Alonso 476 2038 46 10.3 44.3 Jonathan India 373 1597 45 8.3 35.5 Anthony Rizzo 321 1344 44 7.3 30.5 Willi Castro 394 1436 41 9.6 35.0 Luke Raley 277 933 41 6.8 22.8 Isaac Paredes 407 1593 41 9.9 38.9 But when we look at his games played per hit by pitch and plate appearances per hit by pitch, that’s when Wallner enters the chat. MLB Hit By Pitch Leaders by G/HBP, 2022-2024 (min. 60 games) Player Games Plate Appearances Times Hit By Pitch G/HBP PA/HBP Leo Jiménez 63 210 16 3.9 13.1 Matt Wallner 169 580 31 5.5 18.7 Ty France 438 1813 68 6.4 26.7 Willson Contreras 322 1340 49 6.6 27.3 Luke Raley 277 933 41 6.8 22.8 Mark Canha 404 1511 58 7.0 26.1 Anthony Rizzo 321 1344 44 7.3 30.5 Zach Neto 239 931 32 7.5 29.1 Andrés Giménez 451 1806 60 7.5 30.1 Luis Urias 212 758 27 7.9 28.1 MLB Hit By Pitch Leaders by PA/HBP, 2022-2024 (min. 60 games) Player Games Plate Appearances Times Hit By Pitch G/HBP PA/HBP Leo Jiménez 63 210 16 3.9 13.1 Tim Locastro 81 113 7 11.6 16.1 Matt Wallner 169 580 31 5.5 18.7 Bradley Zimmer 109 117 6 18.2 19.5 Luke Raley 277 933 41 6.8 22.8 Tyler Freeman 206 637 25 8.2 25.5 Mark Canha 404 1511 58 7.0 26.1 Ty France 438 1813 68 6.4 26.7 Josh Harrison 160 539 20 8.0 27.0 Willson Contreras 322 1340 49 6.6 27.3 Returning back to Matt Braun’s 2023 article about Wallner, he pointed out that Wallner gets hit in two primary locations by doing one simple trick: It’s either his elbow or his lower legs, and it’s because he simply does not get out of the way. Regarding his elbow, he even seems to stick it in the path of the ball while also appearing to get out of the way. This season, The Minnesota Moose hasn’t been as much of a ball magnet. While he’s still shy of his 76 games in 2023 and 75 games in 2024 and thus his volume of hit by pitches should be expected to be lower, his rate of plunkings has dropped precipitously. Matt Wallner Hit By Pitch, MLB Career Season Games Plate Appearances Times Hit By Pitch Games/HBP PA/HBP 2022 18 65 2 9.0 37.5 2023 76 254 13 5.8 19.5 2024 75 261 16 4.7 16.3 2025 61 222 3 20.3 74.0 Anecdotally, I don’t recall seeing Wallner suddenly develop an aversion to wearing one from a pitcher, so I was puzzled when I discovered his dropoff. My instinct was to check if he’s being pitched differently than in years past, which turns out to be true (the images below are from the catcher’s view). 2023 2024 2025 As you can see in the 2025 image, not only is Wallner seeing fewer pitches off the plate inside (the right of the zone in the pictures), he’s seeing fewer pitches outside the zone, period. This is confirmed by his 2025 zone percentage (the percent of pitches seen inside the strike zone) being the highest of his career. It might seem that challenging a power hitter like Wallner is a recipe for disaster, but we have to remember that swinging hard often comes with a fair number of whiffs, too, of which Wallner has not improved. (MLB average zone% is 52.4% and average z-contact% is 85.6% in 2025). Matt Wallner Zone% and Zone Contact% By Year Year Zone% Z-Contact% 2022 47.9 68.8 2023 49.5 73.1 2024 48.4 72.2 2025 53.8 70.9 While getting hit by pitches may seem accidental, we have to remember that some players show that it is indeed a skill, such as Ty France and Willi Castro. Wallner was demonstrating the same in the past, but pitchers are also pitching inside the zone more to take away one of his weapons. Fortunately, he’s countered the loss of HBPs by boosting his walk rate to a career-high 11.3%, so he’s still finding ways to get on base even when the hits and hit-by-pitches weren’t coming. It seems like Wallner might be getting himself out of his most recent slump, and returning to being a threat at the plate will probably lead to more pitches out of the zone and thus more chances to demonstrate how he got the moniker “Cement Bones.” Regardless, I think all of us (and perhaps Wallner himself, too) would prefer to see him rack up hits and home runs more than fastballs to the elbow pad and breaking balls to his lower body.

1) Infield pop-ups by the foul lines and in foul territory have a similar trajectory, where they go towards the stands then curve a bit back towards in play. Seems that Wallner is getting a similar effect with how high he's hitting these home runs. Rather than saying he's an outlier, I'd want to see the trajectories of similar batted balls from other players, because... 2) This exact effect can be replicated in slowpitch softball. Both as a hitter and as a left fielder, I've hit/defended balls that appeared to be going directly to left field which curved to left-center, or had one ripped down the line that managed to stay straight instead of curving. That might have some clues to this phenomenon, too.

Since taking over as Twins manager prior to the 2019 season, Rocco Baldelli has frustrated many fans with how early he removes his starting pitchers from games. Let’s travel through time and observe three starts from the past couple years. June 18th, 2022 - Twins at Diamondbacks (Box Score) Starting Pitcher: Dylan Bundy This is Bundy's 11th start of the season since signing a free agent contract with the Twins for one year and $4 million. Up to this point, he'd only been allowed to start the 6th inning four times out of 10 starts and had maxed out at 6 innings pitched. With a 5.87 ERA (thanks to 13 earned runs in 12 1/3 innings pitched over his previous three starts), he was looking to turn his season around in Arizona. Well, going 8 innings with only 1 run allowed in an 11-1 victory appeared to be a good sign. The D-Backs couldn't muster much against his 107 pitches, getting only 4 baserunners while striking out 7 times. Surely this meant Bundy had earned some more trust from manager Rocco Baldelli, but that proved to be false as Bundy was only allowed to throw 60 pitches and 6 innings at home against the Rockies in his next start (a 1-0 loss). After that loss to the Rockies, he never completed 6 innings again and only topped 80 pitches twice for the remainder of the season, his final year in MLB. June 8th, 2024 - Twins at Pirates (Box Score) Starting Pitcher: Simeon Woods Richardson Woods Richardson started the season in the minor leagues and started one game as part of an April 13th doubleheader before joining the rotation full time thanks to Louie Varland's demotion. After a cup of coffee in each of the prior two seasons, this was SWR's first extended look in the majors and he seized what Varland could not. Even with a 5-run hiccup against the Blue Jays nearly a month earlier, Woods Richardson sported a tidy 3.05 ERA entering this game and the Twins were starting to reap the rewards from trading away Jose Berrios several years earlier. However, Woods Richardson was being treated much like Bundy two years earlier, as he wasn't being pushed beyond 6 innings and was often removed early despite allowing 2 runs or less. This start in Pittsburgh was a different story, though, as Woods Richardson stood atop the pitching mound to kick off the bottom of the 7th inning. Nine times prior, SWR was off the field at this point, but Baldelli entrusted him to maintain a 0-0 tie through 83 pitches. Unfortunately, Baldelli's faith did not pay off, as Woods Richardson allowed a home run to Rowdy Tellez, and the Twins were unable to score in what was ultimately a 4-0 loss. June 9th, 2023 - Twins at Blue Jays (Box Score) Starting Pitcher: Sonny Gray I swear it's purely coincidental that these are all away games in June, but if anyone would represent Rocco Baldelli's propensity for quick hooks for starting pitchers, it had to be Sonny Douglas Gray. We're familiar with Gray's frustration of being pulled earlier than he preferred while with the Twins, and this day featured exactly that. He entered this game with a 2.28 ERA on the season and had shut down the Blue Jays through the first 4 innings. His 5th wasn't as good, needing 31 pitches while allowing 4 baserunners and his first and only run of the game, but 76 pitches and a 2-1 lead at the end of the 5th was still laudable. However, Gray was forced to watch Jovani Moran give up the tying run in the 6th inning, and the outcome would have been more sour if not for the Twins plating the eventual winning run in the top of the 10th inning. --- Okay, let's return to the present. Just like you, I've noticed the demise of the starting pitcher in Twins Territory. Complete games? Gone. Cresting the 100-pitch threshold? Gone. Your sanity as Rocco Baldelli makes his somber march to the pitcher's mound in the 5th inning? Gone, gone, gone. Even with his pitching staff finishing 4th in MLB in innings per start in 2023 (5.52) and 14th in 2024 (5.26), he receives frequent criticism for pulling his starters too early in games. (Being 21st at 5.14 innings per start through the All-Star break this season isn’t helping matters.) We're aware of the struggles pitchers endure while facing the opposing lineup a third time in a game, and pitchers have conga-lined their way to Driveline, Tread, etc. to throw harder and learn nastier pitches to the detriment of their in-game stamina. This has caused fans to be so frustrated that we now have proposals for the double-hook (the starting pitcher leaving with less than 5 innings pitched causes his team to lose their DH for the rest of the game) and stricter roster limits, like a maximum of 11 pitchers on the active roster. However, sometimes Baldelli breaks from tradition and allows some starting pitchers to pitch deeper into games. Alternately, he also removes his starters early when they appear to be cruising, such as Woods Richardson against the Cubs Tuesday last week (0 runs allowed on 2 hits through 5 innings, but only 61 pitches thrown). It hasn't felt that there's been a discernible reason when some pitchers get to break free from the organization's philosophical grasp, so I wanted to identify when Baldelli and Co. choose to remove their starting pitcher. You see, the Bundy and Woods Richardson starts mentioned at the top stood out to me as a Twins fan. I recall fellow fans balking at Bundy getting pulled after 5 innings and 1 run allowed, but the counterargument was, "It's Dylan (expletive) Bundy! You really want to see him pitch more?" Essentially, you had to assume he was going to be mediocre each start. Anything better than that, Baldelli should cash in his chips before the odds started swinging the other way. Yet that start in Arizona piqued my interest because, sure, it was 9-0 after 3 1/2 innings, but Bundy was allowed to pitch far longer than any other start that season. It's not like his performance was unusual, as he had 10 other starts that season where he allowed 1 run or less, but the Arizona start was 2 full innings longer than his next longest start, which occurred twice (one of which was his following start against Colorado). Likewise, Woods Richardson was often pulled despite pitching more than adequately. It seemed automatic, he'd be allowed to complete 5-6 innings, but he was typically removed before the 7th inning despite being nowhere near 100 pitches. From watching Twins games daily, I noticed that Baldelli would often turn to the bullpen early if the score was close. That start in Pittsburgh was different, though, as SWR was handed the 7th inning in a scoreless ballgame. It ultimately backfired as Woods Richardson gave up the game's first run while facing the Pirates' lineup a third time, but it was interesting that this was the time that he finally got to pitch into the 7th inning. Therefore, I started my research shortly after that Woods Richardson start in Pittsburgh. I began by identifying the Twins pitchers in the Baldelli era that seemed to get frequent quick hooks despite pitching well. Bundy, Randy Dobnak, and Devin Smeltzer jumped out to me immediately. The Pittsburgh start for Woods Richardson was the whole reason I started this project, so he was in. Matt Shoemaker got the Bundy treatment, too, he was in. Same with Kenta Maeda, Rich Hill, and Sonny Gray. Louie Varland? Come on down! Fans were mad about Dallas Keuchel's first Twins start (5 innings, 8 hits, 0 strikeouts, but only 1 run allowed)? Save him a seat. But now I had a problem. I accumulated all these pitchers that potentially had flaws that prevented them from pitching deeper into games, but there wasn't a control group, so to speak. Thus, I added in the top three pitchers in recent seasons, Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober. I also found it interesting that J.A. Happ seemed to pitch into the 7th inning more frequently than most of the other pitchers, so he was added in as well. This gave me a total of 14 pitchers and 425 starts ranging from May 28th, 2019 to June 16th, 2024. I want to note that this does not include every pitcher that made a start for the Twins, as I focused only on those that seemed to be on short leashes unfairly and those that were the absolute best. For example, I don't think any of you are upset that Josh Winder averaged under 5 innings a start in 2022, or why Charlie Barnes' 8 starts in 2021 failed to make the cut. I also omitted Chris Archer in 2022, as complications from his surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome prevented him from pitching more than 4-5 innings per start. The same is true for Bailey Ober's 2021, as the Twins were open about keeping his innings near his 2019 career high of 78 2/3 after the 2020 minor league season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Any other outings that were cut short due to injuries, illness, rain, poor performance, etc. or were “bulk” outings following an opener were also removed as they didn’t fit the spirit of the exercise. This pared down the number of starts to 335. Next, I had to determine what stats to use. I started with innings pitched, batters faced, and pitch count as measurements of start length. As for measuring performance, the standard box score stats seemed obvious (hits, runs allowed, earned runs allowed, walks, and strikeouts) but also rudimentary. One run allowed in Bundy's 11-1 win versus Arizona was much different than Gray leaving his White Sox start ahead 2-1, so I also looked at the score when the pitcher was removed and the game's final score, along with which opposing batters were due up later in the inning or in the next inning. Matthew Trueblood gave me a good suggestion as well of looking at the game’s leverage index (how stressful a situation is based on the score, inning, number of outs, and runners on base, where 0 is least stressful, 1 is average stress, and anything above is higher stress) when the pitcher was removed to determine if the current game situation warranted the pitcher’s removal. Most of this data still felt very basic, but I did have a remedy. Though I don't recall the exact quote, I remember the Twins broadcast noted during Woods Richardson’s remarkable start against the Pirates that he generated many swings and misses. Indeed, he ended the game with a 16.5% whiff rate, his second-highest in a start up to that point. (Note: It appears that FanGraphs and Baseball Reference have different numbers for whiff rates, so FanGraphs says it’s 15.5% while Baseball Reference has 16.5%. I believe the difference is regarding whether to include foul tips as swinging strikes.) So, I started keeping track of swinging strike percentage, along with a pitcher's called strike plus whiff percentage (CSW%). Additionally, I wanted a statistic for overall offensive performance and expected offensive performance, so I recorded each start's weighted on-base average (wOBA) and expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA). I figured that while a pitcher's surface-level stats like earned runs allowed might look good, perhaps he had allowed a lot of hard contact and the Twins wanted him out of a game before his luck turned. Lastly, since we hear so often about how a pitcher fares against a lineup the third time through the order, I recorded each player’s tOPS+ allowed when facing a lineup a third time, or their OPS allowed the third time through compared to their overall OPS allowed. A tOPS+ of 95 when facing the batting order a third time means that pitcher performed (100 - 95)% or 5% better than his overall OPS, while a tOPS+ of 105 means he performed (105 - 100)% or 5% worse than his overall production. Using all of this information, I then reviewed each start over the time period for these 14 pitchers and determined whether I agreed, partially agreed, or disagreed with when Baldelli removed the pitcher from his start. I will admit, I didn't pay any attention to who was available in the bullpen for each start, as reliever availability is due to a myriad of reasons beyond just "how many pitches has he thrown recently?" and I felt it would be too difficult to determine who was truly available each day by reviewing the previous days’ games. I also did not create an objective measure for differentiating a good hook versus a bad hook, resorting instead to what the kids these days call "vibes." After all that work, I identified my results. If you'd like to peruse the data yourself, you can find it here. Green rows mean I agreed with the hook, yellow means I partially agreed, red means I disagreed, and purple is an omitted start due to injury, illness, bad performance, etc. Some rows have blue text, which means I felt they were the “best” hooks made by Baldelli. Others are boxed, which were notable games that could have been featured at the top of this article. I also included some notes for nearly every game if I felt it was relevant. Here are significant findings from this study. 1) It seems that many fans still believe 100 pitches is the threshold for starting pitchers to reach and that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Many of the starts ended with the pitcher throwing about 80-90 pitches, likely because starting a new inning would have guaranteed the pitcher would get to 100 or more. A quick inning would have been fine, sure, but there was a risk the starter would struggle, leading to a reliever coming into a tight spot mid-inning. I know that teams would prefer to give their reliever a clean inning, thus they err on taking the starter out a little early. Plus, the lower pitch counts are a current strategy in the hopes of reducing pitcher injuries. (Whether or not it’s working is debatable.) 2) You've likely noticed that the Twins rotations have been righthander-heavy for years now. If a pitcher was reaching the 80-90 pitch threshold with lefthanded batters coming up and Caleb Thielbar available, Thielbar was coming in. This season, we’re seeing a similar operation with Danny Coulombe. Going back to last Tuesday’s game against the Cubs, Woods Richardson was pulled after 5 innings in favor of Coulombe with three of the next four batters hitting lefthanded. The idea is like Baldelli’s pinch-hitting strategy - use your bench/bullpen for the present situation, rather than hoping for a similar situation later in the game. If he didn’t use Coulombe in the 6th against the trio of Cubs lefties, the next time those batters would hit would be the 8th or 9th inning - situations typically reserved for Griffin Jax and/or Jhoan Duran. 3) I found the correlation coefficient for the three measures of start length (innings pitched, pitches thrown, and batters faced) compared to various performance stats and leverage index at time of removal. The correlation coefficient r ranges from -1 to 1, where 0 is no correlation between the variables, -1 means a perfect negative correlation (as one variable goes up, the other goes down) and 1 is a perfect positive correlation (as one variable goes up, the other also goes up). CSW% Whiff% LI when Removed wOBA xwOBA Runs Allowed tOPS+ TTO Total Pitches .083 .245 -.132 -.051 -.173 .065 -.172 Innings Pitched .188 .239 -.417 -.479 -.346 -.200 -.078 Batters Faced .031 .167 -.477 .125 -.010 .269 -.064 As you can see, only a couple pairs had as much as a moderate correlation: innings pitched vs. leverage index when removed, IP vs. wOBA, IP vs. xwOBA, and batters faced vs. leverage index when removed. Every other pair had either a weak or virtually no correlation. The correlation between wOBA and innings pitched makes sense, you’re going to be allowed to pitch deeper if you’re shutting down the opposing offense. Likewise with leverage index when removed and batters faced or innings pitched, as you’ll get to face more batters and go deeper into the game if the score is lopsided (in the Twins’ favor, as the previous correlation shows). In fact, Baldelli even confirmed that immediately after the Tuesday Cubs game, where Woods Richardson was removed after only 61 pitches. Of course, these are only moderate correlations, though, so these only partially explain how long a Twins starting pitcher will go in any given start. — After all of this research, I’m left both satisfied and unfulfilled. While hoping to find the single determining factor was an ambitious task as to when Twins starting pitchers are removed from games, I still feel pleased that I found a couple answers. Score and leverage index seem to be the primary factors, along with the availability of top lefthanded relievers. However, I know that I could have used or created an objective measure of start quality that likely would have made my findings more accurate, and I’m sure I could have dug up more pitching stats that perhaps would have yielded better correlations with start length. Regardless, my main goal was to give Twins Territory a better understanding of when Rocco Baldelli chooses to remove his starting pitchers. I can’t promise that this will completely lower your blood pressure, but hopefully this gives you some more answers to his thought process.

ICE just tried to enter a Dodgers game yesterday. We celebrate the military at every Twins home game. Politics and sports are intertwined whether or not you like it.

Personally, I have no use for pre- and post-game shows when I'm already getting enough news from the beat writers on social media. However, I find it amateurish to start the broadcast just seconds before the first pitch or after the game starts. As far as I'm concerned, the broadcast should start no later than right before the home team takes the field.

I have no idea what you're looking at because watching Stewart the past two seasons, his stuff is incredible. He was dominant early last season until he got hurt, and his overall numbers look bad because of his 3 July outings where he clearly wasn't healthy. I'm okay with saying he can't be counted on for a full season, but healthy Stewart will be a late-inning reliever with a 3.30 FIP or better.

This is a very fair question to ask. While there are fans that say things like the Pohlads embrace mediocrity, which is a fair criticism, there are fans that act like they're legitimately angry over every bad thing that happens to this team, or every loss is justification that Rocco Baldelli is the wrong manager for this team / Derek Falvey is the wrong president of baseball operations. There's no doubt the organization is better off than the end of Ron Gardenhire's tenure, the Paul Molitor/Bill Smith/second Terry Ryan years, but some fans scream that anything less than a World Series is a failure and that organizational changes need to be made until that championship is realized (and even then, they'd still find reasons to complain). I personally would find it exhausting to be that angry all the time about a sport that I love. Tl;dr, turn off the sports talk radio, educate yourselves that many other teams operate in a similar manner, and why they act in that manner, learn that there is indeed a pitching pipeline, and those in charge are allowed to make mistakes as long as they learn and correct what caused those mistakes. Demanding perfection is a losing battle and turns off level-headed fans like myself.

"Lewis is upset with being moved to 2nd base." As far as I'm concerned, two points had to be (and perhaps were) made to him. 1 ) The Twins need to get more bats in the lineup. 2) If he has a problem with the position switch, he shouldn't have made so many throwing errors at 3rd. Also, don't worry what Boras thinks. If Lewis keeps hitting, he'll get paid regardless of if he's a 2nd baseman or 3rd baseman.

The Twins have the 10th-lowest strikeout rate this season. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&rost=&age=&filter=&players=0&sortcol=9&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1

I think it's no more complicated than he hits lefthanded and making room for him meant removing an outfielder (Margot or Martin) that hits righthanded.

66 plate appearances before the season tells you he can't pinch hit? Seriously? That's like 16 games-worth of plate appearances for a full-time player.

So many complaints that 0-for-25 means Baldelli needs to stop using Margot as a pinch-hitter. As Greggory pointed out, Margot has a career 122 OPS+ against LHP. I guarantee the Twins coaching staff and front office care more about that sample size (983 PA) than Margot's hitless streak when pinch-hitting this season or his career numbers as a pinch-hitter, both of which are significantly smaller samples. I'd like to see his xBA and xwOBA in those pinch hits, not because I'd expect them to be great, but at least we'd have more evidence that it's really unlucky to pull off what Margot's done this year. While I've got your attention, I want to also point out that this frequent pinch-hitting is often how playoff games are managed. Why reserve certain strategies for the playoffs instead of using them in the regular season to get everyone acclimated? Even though Margot is struggling, he's going to be far more comfortable pinch-hitting in the playoffs than hitters on other teams because he's already done it plenty in the regular season.

Hard pass. A 29% K-rate since the start of May is encouraging after his hot April, but he's also walking 12.2% of hitters and has allowed 1.7 HR/9 as well. (There's also a .280 batting average allowed, but a BABIP in the .370s is to blame there.) He's only worth acquiring as the last reliever in the bullpen or as Triple-A depth (if he can even be optioned), not a 6th- or 7th-inning reliever.

The Twins traded Arraez because they viewed him as a 1B-only singles hitter. The Marlins traded him because they're going nowhere, but I saw a summary of Arraez around the time of the Marlins/Padres trade that makes tons of sense, which Nick hinted at. Arraez is exceptional at one skill (contact), and it's an important skill, but he becomes worthless when that skill disappears. No team wants to be holding this hot potato when his bat-to-ball skills deteriorate. It's like Ben Revere, who was a 2-win player when hitting .300 but became replacement-level when it dipped down to .275. (DRS views him as a bad defender, just like Arraez.) Once Revere stopped hitting at his previous levels, he was out of the majors.

I think you're looking for someone to blame when it's easy to explain all three. Wallner - always had swing-and-miss in his profile, and wasn't able to adjust to the pitchers' adjustments Kirilloff - too many grounders Julien - became too passive You think the Twins coaching staff wasn't trying to fix those issues? Eventually the team has to admit that they're better off having the players make their changes (and potentially continuing their offensive struggles as they adapt to those changes) in the minors, so they aren't hurting the major league team.

Castro is hitting well and has positional flexibility. It's an indictment on some of the other players hitting poorly, sure, but Castro deserves credit for earning his playing time, too.

This is one of the simplest facts that baseball fans fail to understand. Back in 2013, Jeff Sullivan (then with FanGraphs) compared where the catcher set up to where Mariano Rivera threw his cutter. He found that Rivera still missed his target on multiple occasions. A similar thing was with former pitcher Matt Thornton, who credited his breakthrough in MLB with being coached that his stuff was so good that he could aim down the middle of the plate and let his pitches' movement carry the ball to the corners of the plate. The pitching staff has given up a lot of home runs relative to the rest of the league, but they're also 2nd in the league in strikeout rate and 3rd in walk rate. I'm sure that coaching the pitchers to aim for the corners might lead to fewer home runs allowed, but likely would also cause the strikeout and walk rates to trend in the wrong directions as well.

Wow, the comments sure are feisty, and instead of responding to all of them individually, I'll just say everything here. 1) This is a really interesting article and I'm impressed with the data you were able to find. 2) Provus' way of saying Vázquez is correct. The other way that we're used to is anglicized. I'm more bothered that he's saying Duran differently than Jhoan Duran says it. 3) 1B defense absolutely matters, it's just that teams deemphasized it for decades when they had a slugger there. 4) I'm sure 1B have a higher TIH% in past years when there was less shifting. I'd be curious to know how it's changed from pre-exaggerated shifts to exaggerated to shift restrictions.

I'd say it's not weird. His sweeper and splitter have always had great movement.

Needs more Less Than Jake.

In case you're being serious (though the Lindell joke is funny), a pillow contract is a 1-year deal where the player looks to recoup his value in the hopes of springboarding into a larger contract the following offseason. Gallo's contract this past season counted as a pillow contract, though he definitely didn't regain value this year.

No one's going to move a Gold Glove CF to 1B just in the name of health.

As far as I'm concerned Baldelli is a very good manager. Here are the common complaints I've seen. 1) He doesn't get fired up / doesn't fire up the team well. Too many fans think the best way to motivate someone is to yell at them or someone else, probably because it's what they experienced as a player or it's what they would do in that situation. I *hated* coaches that did this. My 10th grade basketball coach is an example and in a season where we went winless unless the 10th grade JV players joined us, his act made me want to quit, not play better. 2) He doesn't know how to manage a bullpen. Everyone says this about their team's manager. Yawn. 3) Too many pinch-hitters / pinch-hitting too early. He's putting his hitters in the best positions to succeed. Especially when the opposition uses an opener where he's followed by a bulk guy that throws with the opposite hand, why wouldn't you use the platoon advantage if you have hitters with better numbers against that guy? I understand the concern that you might run out of players, but that's getting into "Gardy needs 3 active catchers" fearmongering. I also saw frustration that Julien was getting pulled early, especially with good numbers against LHP in the minors, so I'll admit that was one thing that puzzled me a bit. Julien barely walked against LHP in the majors this year, though, so maybe they knew something that we didn't. One last thing, I bet the constant pinch-hitting kept players fresher because while they weren't getting full days off all the time, they also knew they could enter any game at any time and thus had to stay mentally focused more frequently. 4) Too much analytics / not enough feel. The best teams are using analytics and I bet Baldelli has job security because he follows what Falvey/Levine want. Plus, Molitor was fired as manager partially because he wasn't a good enough conduit between the front office and clubhouse. --- Meanwhile, the things I feel Baldelli does well are... 1) Good bridge between front office and clubhouse Some people hate that he might not use his gut as much as they'd like, and maybe it's because I'm a math teacher, but I'd prefer to see data-informed decisions. We need to view decisions through a "was it a good process?" lens instead of "was it a good outcome?" because not every good process works out, and not every good outcome comes from a good process. 2) Great clubhouse harmony He's proactive with notifying players, such as that first game where Julien was pinch-hit for before his first PA, Twins reporters said after the game that the players knew they might get pulled without hitting, or he maps out rest days about a week in advance. Players don't experience surprises with him. 3) Adapts to his personnel Baldelli hasn't game-managed the same every year, which was already addressed by Hans. --- Overall, there aren't many managers that I think do a better job than Baldelli. I feel most people that complain about him would complain about virtually any manager the Twins employed.

Literally every manager and front office leader does this. It isn't just a Rocco thing. Edit: I want to give a more nuanced answer. You're exaggerating how bad it is. Of course he's going to be optimistic or guarded with revealing too much at the beginning, because they don't have all the facts right away. Anyway, this was the exact same complaint we had about Terry Ryan and Bill Smith. I still remember Joe Crede staying on the active roster as "day-to-day" while resting his back soreness for roughly a week before he was put on the IL. Acting like this is a Baldelli problem is misguided.