Brad Swanson

Sometimes inspiration strikes in odd ways. Today, Rhett Bollinger, the Twins' MLB.com beat writer, sent out this tweet: Joe Mauer just popped out. Something he did only once last year in 641 plate appearances. #MNTwins — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 Wait, what? I saw that come through my feed and I was immediately interested. Was it true? @bridman77 Yep. It's actually only once in the last two years. Fangraphs has the stats. — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 That seems so unlikely. Even by raw luck, one would think that Mauer would pop out a few times each year. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Mauer was the best in the AL last year at not making outs. He only made an out 58.4% of the time. He had 641 plate appearances and only one resulted in an infield fly ball, which is what I will now be using to describe a pop up (at times). He struck out 88 times, so he still made over 300 outs with his bat. And yet, only once did he make an out by flying out in the infield. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! How rare is this? I was inspired to investigate. I started doing some research. Mauer has only 20 infield fly outs in his nine-year-career. Crazy. I decided to look at how many players had 20 or more infield fly outs last season. Forty. Forty players! Forty players popped out as much or more than Mauer has in his entire career, and all just last season. Now I am really intrigued. Here's a spreadsheet that resulted from my intrigue: Infield Fly Ball Nerd Spreadsheet Looking at the spreadsheet demonstrates just how rare this feat or accomplishment or freak occurrence really is. In fact, take a look at this chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD][TD]Mauer Infield Fly Balls # of Players > 20 IFFB that season Mauer Infield Hits 2004 1 87 4 2005 3 62 6 2006 2 73 8 2007 1 62 5 2008 6 57 10 2009 2 50 8 2010 4 46 12 2011 0 56 6 2012 1 40 8 Total 20 533 67 [/TABLE] Mauer has had 20 infield fly balls in 9 years, and 533 players have had 20 or more infield fly balls in a season during that same span. I threw in a BONUS! column that shows Mauer has over 3 times as many infield hits than infield fly balls. How crazy. Before I go further, this data does not necessarily mean these were all pop outs. They are simply infield fly balls. Some may have dropped, although it stands to reason that the vast majority were converted into outs. So, when I use these terms interchangeably, I apologize. This isn't an academic journal. Since we are all in love with this stat at this point, I looked at who created the most infield fly balls per plate appearance. Basically, these are the Pop-Up Kings: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Eric Byrnes 273 3478 7.85% Tony Batista 180 2315 7.78% Mike Rivera 45 593 7.59% Todd Greene 58 841 6.90% Mike Moustakas 64 979 6.54% Rod Barajas 234 3642 6.43% Joe Crede 212 3307 6.41% Drew Butera 33 531 6.21% John Flaherty 43 692 6.21% Lenny Harris 34 555 6.13% [/TABLE] Do you prefer volume pop-up hitters? Here is the chart for you! [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name Career IFFB Vernon Wells 277 Carlos Lee 255 Eric Byrnes 245 Albert Pujols 239 Johnny Damon 221 Alex Gonzalez 212 Jimmy Rollins 210 Yuniesky Betancourt 207 Aramis Ramirez 206 Rod Barajas 205 [/TABLE] A few familiar names indeed! Personally, I'd rather remember Eric Byrnes for his extreme pop-up-edness, rather than for his current gig at MLB Network. Tony Batista would have absolutely been my first guess as a Pop-Up King. The way he stands would seem to lend itself to popping up a lot. The leaders pop-up about every 13 plate appearances. What about the players with the lowest rate of infield fly balls? WordHippo tells me that the opposite of a King is a Subject. So, here are the Pop-Up Subjects (that sounds terrible): [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Larry Bigbie 1 1218 0.08% Julio Franco 4 1517 0.26% Ben Revere 3 1064 0.28% Joey Votto 11 3064 0.36% Howie Kendrick 13 3232 0.40% Ryan Howard 19 4701 0.40% Joe Mauer 20 4552 0.44% Derek Jeter 34 7644 0.44% Jose Tabata 6 1197 0.50% Buster Posey 7 1255 0.56% [/TABLE] Mauer, even with all his anti-pop-up glory, is only 7th. Larry Bigbie had one pop-up in his career. Here is the box score from that game, in case you want to frame it. Many of the names on this list are players who just don't hit a lot of fly balls at all. Just looking at last year, Ben Revere had the lowest fly ball rate, Jeter was second lowest, Kendrick fourth and Mauer sixth. Votto, Howard and Posey seem like the anomalies, as they are all powerful hitters. Votto and Posey post lower than average fly ball rates, and Howard is right at average. The fact that each hits a lot of homeruns is quite impressive, as they just hit fewer balls in the air than most power hitters. I refuse to try to make sense of anything related to Julio Franco. Back to Mauer. Mauer hits an infield fly ball once in every 227 plate appearances. So, today's event was pretty rare. In fact, we might not see another one until around June. The real question is why is he such a Subject of Pop-Ups? I really hate that name. Let's call them No Pop-Up Dudes going forward. A bigger picture can be seen with all of his batted ball data. Here are his batted ball rates compared with league average: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Rates Mauer League Avg LD 23.10% 20% GB 50.30% 44% FB 26.60% 36% IFFB 2.20% 10% [/TABLE] This helps to explain his lack of home run power, but overall great hitting. BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?!? I don't know, nothing? Well, the best contact hitters seem to be good at avoiding the worst type of contact. It stands to reason that the infield fly ball is the worst type of batted ball. It doesn't get converted to hits or runs unless there is some sort of hilarious infield mishap and they almost never lead to sacrificed runners. Mauer likely avoids this type of contact because he has such a great approach and he doesn't deviate from it. He swings easily and tends to swing at only pitches he can handle. The fact that he doesn't hit a lot of fly balls to begin with helps as well. Overall, Mauer seems to be a hitter who knows exactly what he wants to do, and stays within that approach in nearly all cases. Or, he's a wizard. Upon further review, Grant Brisbee, Jeff Sullivan, and Jeff Passan all wrote about Joey Votto's extreme aversion to pop ups. You could argue that he was the original No Pop-Up Dude. In addition, Sullivan wrote about how remarkable Joe Mauer is. You can say I stole from everyone and no one.

Not all bad teams are created equal. Some teams are bad for just one injury-plagued season. Some teams are bad for a few seasons and then good for a few seasons. Some teams are just chronically bad. Bad teams have the benefit of receiving good draft picks, but other than that, they don't really gain any sort of advantage from being bad. And there are disadvantages. Bad teams can struggle to attract fans and free agents, while also struggling to keep their own home-grown players. Yesterday, we looked at the two worst teams in MLB in 2012, the Astros and Cubs, and saw that they took much different paths towards rebuilding. Today, we'll look at the next three, including the Minnesota Twins. All are very different in their methods this offseason. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] ~~~Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed~~~ Colorado Rockies - Hide under coats; hope it all works out [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 83-79 [/TD] Ubaldo Jimenez 7.3 Indians Troy Tulowitzki 6.5 Rockies Carlos Gonzalez 5.8 Rockies Jhoulys Chacin 2.4 Rockies Miguel Olivo 2.3 Reds 2011 - 73-89 Troy Tulowitzki 5.9 Rockies Carlos Gonzalez 4.2 Rockies Jhoulys Chacin 3.6 Rockies Chris Iannetta 3.1 Angels Dexter Fowler 2.5 Rockies 2012 - 64-98 Rafael Betancourt 2.6 Rockies Dexter Fowler 2.5 Rockies Matt Belisle 2.3 Rockies Jhoulys Chacin 2 Rockies Josh Roenicke 2 Twins [/TABLE] The Rockies confuse me. They have had two consecutive bad seasons. They have a couple of superstar players, but both miss a decent chunk of seemingly each season (Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez). They did next to nothing this off-season, other than signing Jeff Francis, and trading for Reid Brignac and Wilton Lopez. These aren't moves that help rebuild a team. They also did not trade anyone for any sort of young player or prospect. Their strategy seems to hinge on healthy seasons from their stars and development from their young pitchers. Their farm system is pretty poor, so there isn't a lot of help coming from that part of the organization. They have good players (I love Dexter Fowler), but they also have old players. On the other hand, Gonzalez is 27 and Tulowitzki is 28. Both are signed forever, so that is good, but there isn't much around them. Michael Cuddyer is overrated, Todd Helton is a billion and I can't think of a third thing. I think that is a bad sign. I can't assess any risk because I have no idea what they are even doing. Minnesota Twins - Some sort of Cobra-Squirrel hybrid [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 94-68 Joe Mauer 5.5 Twins Justin Morneau 4.6 Twins Jim Thome 3.4 NOWHERE Orlando Hudson 2.6 NOWHERE Brian Duensing 2.4 Twins 2011 - 63-99 Scott Baker 4.2 Cubs Denard Span 2.3 Nationals Glen Perkins 2 Twins Carl Pavano 1.8 NOWHERE Michael Cuddyer 1.7 Rockies 2012 - 66-96 Denard Span 4.8 Nationals Joe Mauer 4.1 Twins Jamey Carroll 3.2 Twins Josh Willingham 2.9 Twins Ben Revere 2.4 Phillies [/TABLE] The Twins have certainly struck like a cobra in a few instances this off-season. They added three young pitchers (Vance Worley, Alex Meyer, and Trevor May) in two excellent trades. At the same time, they have been hesitant to trade off other valuable players like Josh Willingham and Justin Morneau. They may simply be lying in wait, looking for the best deal. It is also possible that the market for these two players isn't very good right now. Each has question marks, and each could address them in 2013, raising their trade value. The Twins never really seem committed to a full rebuild, but they have done a nice job of picking their spots and addressing their needs. It is still a work-in-progress, though. Much like the Astros, the Twins could run out of good players to trade. Really, other than Willingham and Morneau, the only realistic trade pieces are Ryan Doumit, Glen Perkins and Jared Burton. Each of those guys might also be worth keeping around. Unlike the Astros, the Twins have more near-ready prospect talent. Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia, Alex Meyer, Kyle Gibson and Trevor May are all top ten prospects who likely will be playing in Minnesota before the end of the 2014 season. The Twins also have some payroll flexibility, and could use the 2013 off-season to truly improve their MLB team, around these young, promising players. Some are starting to say that 2013 is not a rebuilding year. I don't agree with that sentiment, but I do think the Twins are going to relevant as soon as 2014. I see strong parallels between 2014 and that 2001 season that started their AL Central mini-dynasty. There was an uproar about the free agent starting pitchers that were signed this off-season, but the reality is that the Twins likely did not want to sign anyone who would block the young arms who are getting closer to Minnesota each day. There is risk here, and the middle infield is still an issue, but the Twins are amassing resources and making shrewd moves when given the opportunity. Cleveland Indians - Protein Powder [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 69-93 Shin-Soo Choo 5.6 Reds Roberto Hernandez 2.5 Rays Chris Perez 2.5 Indians Travis Hafner 2.1 Yankees Carlos Santana 1.8 Indians 2011 - 80-82 Asdrubal Cabrera 4.6 Indians Justin Masterson 3.6 Indians Carlos Santana 3.4 Indians Jack Hannahan 2.2 Reds Joe Smith 2.2 Indians 2012 - 68-94 [TD] Jason Kipnis 3.7 Indians Carlos Santana 3.7 Indians Shin-Soo Choo 3.1 Reds Asdrubal Cabrera 3 Indians Michael Brantley 2.9 Indians [/TABLE] The Indians seem to be employing a strategy similar to the Cubs. They likely had a better MLB team to begin with, but definitely do not have a comparable farm system. The Indians seem to be targeting their weaknesses and dealing from their strengths. This isn't a unique strategy, but that doesn't make it any easier to implement. The Indians needed to bolster their young pitching, and used Shin-Soo Choo, a great player, to get Trevor Bauer. Bauer has his flaws, but he also has crazy upside. The Indians also signed some good players in free agency, including Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn and yes, Mark Reynolds. They have their core of good players: Jason Kipnis, Carlos Santana, Asdrubal Cabrera, Michael Brantley, Bourn and Swisher. They have interesting arms in Bauer, Justin Masterson, Carlos Carrasco, and Ubaldo Jimenez. They also have two great bullpen arms in Vinnie Pestano and Chris Perez. You could make the argument that the Indians have been rebuilt. They might not be a World Series team, but who knows? A lot of people want to find the next 2012 Orioles or 2012 A's. Likely, there won't be one, but the Indians might be as good a bet as any other team. So, not all rebuilds are the same. Each of these teams had major flaws, and that is why they were the five worst teams in 2012. However, each is employing a different method in their quest to return to relevance. Which strategies will work? Only time will tell.