John Bonnes

The English language is full of idioms that have a relationship to baseball. “Out of left field” is one of them. It essentially means “crazy” or at least “unexpected” but its origin is debated. Some point to an early New York ballpark that had a sanitarium beyond the left field wall. Others think it labeled the kids or fans that purchased a (cheaper) ticket to watch Babe Ruth in left field at Yankee Stadium. Except that Ruth played in right field. While they were out in left field. [sad trombone sound] Today, its usage transcends the sport, so much that almost nobody recognizes it as being attached to baseball. Honestly, before this minute, have you ever even tied it to baseball? Or wondered where it came from? I hope not, because I’m about to use it both figuratively and literally…. We got some news out of left field today. Due to the financial and team-control benefits of limiting a player’s service time, most of us expected #1 Twins prospect Alex Kirilloff to start the season in AAA-St. Paul, and get promoted to the Twins sometime in late April. By doing so, the team would be able to push off his free agency for a year so they would have control over him through 2027 instead of 2026. Which naturally raised the question: who would be playing there in April? Presumably, left-handed batting Jake Cave and right-handed batting Brent Rooker would make a capable platoon. But when Luis Arraez reported to camp and talked about becoming accustomed to left field, Twins fans were reminded that he started in that spot eighteen times his rookie year , which was more than he played any other position other than second base. Given that he’s so valuable in the lineup, perhaps he would get most of the April at-bats? If that’s the plan, there’s some news out of left field. It doesn’t sound like the Twins are planning on investing a lot of spring training time in teaching Arraez that position. Manager Rocco Baldelli talked about seeing a lot of his players, particularly Arraez, play in different positions. But he also indicated he would be almost exclusively in the infield. “He's going to play mostly in the infield,” stated Baldelli. “He's probably going to split between second and third while in the infield. There's a chance he could get a few innings at short or even at first base, but that's not a priority.” This isn’t because the Twins don’t want to find a spot for Arraez in the lineup. That much Baldelli made abundantly clear. “Louie’s going to get a ton of at-bats this year and do a great job,” Baldelli emphasized. “He’s certainly a guy we want in the lineup.” Ok. But where? Is he regularly displacing Jorge Polanco at second? Josh Donaldson at third? Nelson Cruz at designated hitter? It sounds like the plan is to have him move around, and maybe move some other pieces around? “With our roster looking the way it does, we may ask a few guys to do some different things,” Baldelli explained, and then started listing some examples. “Miguel [sano} is going to get some work at third base, in addition to first base. [Polanco] is going to get some work at shortstop, in addition to second base. Kirilloff is going to play first base and corner outfield.” Hold it. Who? Yep, Kirilloff was casually mentioned with several starting lineup players. Does he actually have a non-zero chance to make this roster, regardless of the future financial implications? For what it’s worth, during a discussion about the evils of manipulating player service time yesterday, Donaldson was asked about Kirilloff’s situation. He walked a tightrope. “I think Thad, and the relationship I have with Thad and Derek, is that they want to have the best team out there. That’s going to be for them to answer,” he replied. But it’s clear what Donaldson, a team leader and veteran, thinks should happen. “I’ve seen Alex for a short time as far as being at the alternate site. I think the kid is really good. I think he has a bright future ahead of him. What they do is what they do. I don't know who everybody is gonna be on our roster at this moment. But I would assure Twins fans that everything I’ve seen, Derek and Thad want to put the best team out there.” We hope so. Donaldson (and I imagine, a large chunk of the MLB Players’ Union) are watching. So are we. And wondering. From left field.

Lewis reported this weekend, went through COVID protocol and had his physical on Monday. He reported some soreness in his right knee. He felt a little soreness doing some side-to-side running, and then slipped on some ice in Texas. A subsequent MRI revealed the full tear. Lewis is the Twins #2 prospect in the Twins organization (who Twins Daily, coincidentally, profiled today) and was expected to get a full year's at-bats in some combination of AA-Witchita or AAA-St. Paul. He struggled in 2019 in A ball, but rebounded in the fall in the Arizona Fall League, setting up high expectations for 2020. He spent 2020 training in St. Paul during the cancelled minor league season, where Falvey said the organization saw a lot of development, especially defensively. "Defensively, he can make the flash play as well as anybody", said Falvey. "He can go extend - his athleticism just plays - but those routine plays and getting those ground balls regularly, that was an area of focus for him developmentally. And we thought he did a good job over there last year." As a result, the Twins were very interested to see how he developed this year. His natural track would have been to start at AA, but Falvey admitted they were waiting to see where he was at the end of camp before making a decision. Instead, the 21-year-old will go through a 9-12 month rehab period, returning in 2021. Following the day's workout, Rocco Baldelli addressed the media. "It’s very tough news in a lot of ways. I feel for Royce more than anything else. He was very much looking forward to getting going this year. A lot of enthusiasm coming in, and to deal with that, it’s not easy. It’s certainly a setback but one that he can certainly overcome." Shortstops have generated quite a bit of news in these early days of spring training. Yesterday, the Twins announced they had signed 34-year-old Andrew Romine to a minor league deal and invited him to camp. Asked point blank if that was related to their concerns about Lewis, Falvey said that had been arranged before Lewis' physical. The Twins also announced that starting shortstop Andrelton Simmons is not in camp, stuck in Curacoa with travel issues, and that he is not the only player who is. The Twins expect that situation to be resolved, but did not give a timeframe.

FORT MYERS - It used to be so simple. Starting in the 80s, fans knew who the best reliever was based on how near the end of the game the player pitched in a close game. The best got paid big bucks and pitched the ninth. The 8th inning setup man was next on the hierarchy. The 7th inning person ranked third. As a fan, you could watch when they pitched, and debate with your friends who should be pitching which inning, based on trust. There is a general logic behind this. Pitching the ninth inning in a close game is more important than pitching the seventh inning. Why? Because if your team gives up the lead in the bottom of the ninth, your team loses, whereas if you give up a lead in the top of the seventh, your team still has nine outs to try and regain it. You want your best reliever at the end of the game for the same reason you want your best salesperson on your biggest accounts: the stakes are higher, you have more to lose. No wonder they’re both called closers. But about 10-15 year after this advancement, sabrmetricians started wondering if it wasn’t time to look a little deeper. Some very specific questions started being asked. Was the hierarchy really necessary when leading by three runs? Why was a closer being saved (i.e. not used) during critical extra innings? Was it really more valuable to face the bottom of the order in the ninth than the middle of the order in the eighth? The sabrmetricians had numbers on their side, but the system had something far more valuable: a lot of people entrenched and making money from the existing system. Closers were handsomely paid, sometimes three or four times as much as their teammates. Managers who strayed from the formula were chum if didn’t work, and close games can be fickle mistresses. Managers weren’t necessarily much better if it did work, as egos (and paychecks) could be at risk if the all-important “save” statistic was challenged. But it is changing, and Twins fans are seeing it up close since Rocco Baldelli started managing the team. “I think focusing more on going out there and how to get the outs is significantly more important than the conversation of role,” Baldelli said this week, talking about his bullpen. “We're focused on the first part of that. We are focused on the wins and how to get the outs.” Of course, that’s the sort of thing every manager says, but the last couple seasons of usage suggest it’s not just words. Taylor Rogers has mostly been the closer, but in 2019, he was often brought into games in the eighth inning, to face a more left-handed lineup. Towards the end of last year, he and Sergio Romo tag-teamed the ninth innings. But neither of them was the most valuable Twins reliever, and in fact neither of them was particularly close. That title belongs to Tyler Duffey, who never pitched a ninth inning, and only pitched in the eighth inning three times, only twice in a close game. But he came into games in equally critical situations, and it can be shown using an advanced statistic called Leverage Index (LI). It’s a statistic that I was surprised to find out that Duffey knows when he mentioned in his introductory interview this week. When asked about being satisfied with his earlier-inning fireman roll in the bullpen, Duffey replied “When you realize that an inning’s an inning, and how there’s a leverage index and all these things that really put more value into pitchers, you realize that inning you come in in the seventh and get the ‘three’ hitter out to finish an inning, that out may be so much more valuable than the eighth inning facing seven-eight-nine.” He’s right, of course, but that’s a new school of thought in MLB. And a new statistic. If Tyler Duffey and the Twins are talking about Leverage Index, then we certainly should be. We’ll remedy that tomorrow. Next - Part 2: Leverage Index and Your Blood Pressure

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Shoemaker is a 34-year-old with a 3.86 ERA in 602 major-league innings. He's made 112 appearances in the big leagues, including 104 starts. It was known that the Twins had an offer out to him. His one-year deal includes $250K in incentives on top of a $2 million base, according to Passan. https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1361442210215063556 Shoemaker is a good story, having gone unselected in the 2008 draft before signing with the Angels, working his way up through the minors, and finishing second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2014 when he went 16-4 with a 3.04 ERA. The righty's career has since been marred by injury issues, and he's made just 18 total starts since 2017, but he continues to perform well when on the mound. Andrew Thares wrote last week about why Shoemaker is an intriguing fit for the Twins. For instance, in 2020, Shoemaker increased his fastball's average velocity 1.6% to match the highest velocity of his career. And that paid dividends: "Additionally, his fastball spike started to pay some dividends in the advanced metrics, particularly with his Four-seamer, where his expected wOBA dropped from a career .390 down to just .214 in 2020 on that pitch." Thares also looked at Shoemaker's pitch usage, focusing on those pitchers which gave up home runs, which was his biggest issue in last year. He wonders why they didn't feature the four-seam fastball more.... "Instead, they continued to focus the majority of his fastball usage on his sinker (25.6% of pitches in 2020), which has been a flat-out awful pitch for the almost the entirety of Shoemaker’s career. This is where an opportunity lies for the Twins to take advantage of. If they simply cut the usage of Shoemaker’s awful sinker in favor of what appears to be a much improved four-seamer, it would instantly bring his game to a whole new level. Now that we know the details of the contract, Thares' conclusion reads even stronger: "You factor all of that in with the Twins ability to get the absolute most out of pitchers when other couldn’t (just look at Kenta Maeda last year as an example) and the Twins could have themselves a more than credible option to compete for a spot in the Twins starting rotation this spring, and he would likely be doing so on a cheap, low-risk deal for the Twins." Click over to read the whole analysis. When you're done, since Twins Daily has the best and most generous Twins community, share your thoughts and analysis in the comments! Twins Daily's Tom Froemming shared some highlights of Shoemaker's pitches and additional details of his career to date in the video below.

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This would’ve been our 8th Winter Meltdown, which has included guests from Scott Erickson in 2014 through Kent Hrbek and Trevor Plouffe last year. The pint glasses have been a tradition, and you can see Brock Beauchamp’s design nails the reality of the situation: we’ve all been impacted. But certainly hospitality industry workers f received more than their fair share of the economic impact. They’ve certainly treated us well for the previous seven Meltdowns, so this one will be for them. You can order this year’s pint glass here. We hope you enjoy its use as much as you’ve enjoyed the previous seven, and we further hope we can reconnect in person at some Twins games this summer. In the meantime, be safe and Win Twins. Buy your 2021 Winter Meltdown Pint Glass Here!

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