jorgenswest

How does Suzuki fare? How do they project? I assume that Pinto is young enough to improve at the plate and behind the plate. I also expect Suzuki's bat to regress and decline.

This is no way to rebuild. I have to believe they had legitimate concerns about the ligament. It just isn't enough money in the long run. j

It is possible to go deeper on BP or baseball savant. How much of the stat corner is related to catching Deduno? It can be isolated with more detail. I tried to show that with the split by battery.

Twin DHs combined for a 280/370/490 slash line before Morales joined the roster. The 860 OPS production they were getting from DH was significantly better than any other position. Second was 2B production at 784. Teams don't have to have a dedicated DH. Rotating players through that spot can help keep the roster healthy while giving reasonable production. Without Morales, Willingham would have been used more at DH after his return. The days off in the field might have helped him keep his production at a higher level of performance. If a team is going to devote a roster spot to a DH, they better find someone that can put up the production of an Ortiz or Thome. Is that what we can expect from Morales?

More than anything else, Glen Perkins comment about Pinto seemed to sway the public opinion on Pinto. It went from needing some more work to will never be a catcher. The needing more work makes sense. He had very little time in AAA. We saw how well that went for Hicks and Parmelee. Stating that Pinto can never be a major league catcher is quite a leap for a young player with little time to learn above AA. The Twins staff must think differently. They never tried to move him to a different position while in the minors. It is hard to find evidence in the data that he will not improve enough defensively so that his bat can make up the difference. He was given the job of Deduno's personal catcher this year and about half of his starts at catcher are with Deduno pitching. He didn't fare very well with Deduno. Is that surprising? An inexperienced catcher receiving a pitcher with little command. It is astounding to me that Gardenhire would think this is a good match. Deduno is a wild pitch machine and Suzuki is one of the better wild pitch preventers in the league. Matching Pinto with Deduno set both up for failure and helped to change the perception of Pinto. If you are interested you can look at how Pinto did with other pitchers this year. http://twinsdaily.com/entry.php/5484-Framing-by-Battery The full data is available to anyone on the Baseball Prospectus site. After that visit Baseball Savant and look at some of the data and graphics. You can sort pitch fx data in every way one might imagine. http://baseballsavant.com/index.php I have captured some graphics comparing Pinto and Suzuki receiving pitches in the bottom third of the strike zone over their career. They look more similar than dissimilar. They are clearly better than Doumit. Clearly weaker than an average framer like Butera and significantly worse than a good framer like Lucroy.

It is something that could be studied. The data has been shown to be consistent year to year for catchers. It is also easy for catchers to gather a large sample in a short time. How consistent is the data for individual for pitchers? To get a better sample size pitching roles could be compared. Do mop up men do better since they are in low leverage situations? Is it more difficult for closers? Of all the Twins Burton has lost the greatest percentage of strikes this year so I am not sure how that fits. Max Marchi, Dan Turkenkopf and Mike Fast are the pioneers in this area. All of them have been hired by major league clubs. Perhaps this is the kind of detail they are doing for their organizations.

The Reds catcher Mesoraco is number 2 in fWAR among catchers. He has a 170 RC+.

Before the Twins can move Willingham or Morales, the Soriano situation will need to resolve.

Good work. I appreciate the look from a different lens.

I don't think it is set to 0. It happens to be close. The median team is slightly negative, but the 6 top teams weigh the data towards the positive side. team data Pinto isn't a good pitch framer. Suzuki isn't either. Both are better than Doumit. The Twins rank 30th again.

A correction... John said that Aaron Hicks was hitting .149 against right handed pitching in New Britain. I think he clicked on splits in the BR site. Those game logs and splits include both major and minor league numbers and the .149 is a major league number. Minor league central has splits. I think whether he is batting right handed or left handed is in question of both BR and minor league central. The split is 306/414/469. It says R on R but I think it is L or R. In any case it is far better than the .149 we heard on the show.

Has Suzuki changed as a hitter? If so, what should the Twins expect going forward? There is enough sample to look at the rate stats and batted ball outcomes and compare them to his career line. [TABLE=class: outer_border, width: 288] [TD=width: 72][/TD] [TD=width: 72]2014[/TD] [TD=width: 72]2013[/TD] [TD=width: 72]Career[/TD] K% 8.0% 11.1% 11.5% BB% 7.4% 7.0% 6.5% ISO .086 .105 .119 GB% 45.5% 37.2% 41.7% FB% 31.9% 40.3% 39.2% HR/FB% 2.4% 4.2% 6.2% [/TABLE] He has changed as a hitter. He is striking out at a career low rate. Walks are up. His ISO is a career low. His increase in ground ball rate has helped his BABIP and hence his batting average. His BABIP isn't sustainable at .328 but certainly would be better than the .245 he put up last year as a fly ball hitter. His offensive value is tied to his increase in singles and his batting average. There is enough sample to suggest his change as a hitter is real. It is reasonable to project a batting average in the 270s comprised mostly of singles going forward. Acknowledging that he is a better hitter than the 2012-2013 version, I would still trade him for the best the market has to offer. Any Cardinal or Oriole deal gets extra credit because they are certain to let him become a free agent. The Dodgers and Blue Jays may be more motivated to extend him.

They can trade him to St. Louis or Baltimore with the knowledge that he will be available in the winter. Take the prospects and pursue Martin first and Suzuki second this offseason. While he is gone, play Pinto regularly. They may find out they don't need to pursue a catcher.

Dan Turkenkopf's work that showed the run value of turning a strike into a ball. I think the change referred to was from the original .16 to .14 due to count. We haven't heard from him in a while because he was hired by the Rays two seasons ago. It is his manager with the famous quote about Molina saving 50 runs. It is his organization that employs Molina in spite of a slash line of 195/239/201.

Pitch framing data for catchers is available for the last 8 seasons. http://www.statcorner.com/CatcherReport.php It has been shown to be consistent for catchers season to season as many other commonly used measures.

Baseball Prospectus has pitch framing data organized by battery. Framing data by battery The data looks at pitches where the umpire needs to make the call and compares actual strikes with predicted strikes. While looking at splits creates small sample sizes, I wondered if it would be clear that Josmil Pinto's framing skills are significantly worse than Kurt Suzuki. The natural place to start is Glenn Perkins. Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 73 24.3 22 -9.5% Kurt Suzuki 200 73.9 67 -9.3% Glenn Perkins has lost strikes to each catcher. Pinto cost him 2.3 strikes and Suzuki cost him 7.9. By percent Suzuki has a slight edge. How about Sam Deduno? Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 369 125.9 106 -15.8% Kurt Suzuki 257 98.3 88 -10.5% Josmil Pinto had a much more difficult time with Sam Deduno. That isn't surprising. A young catcher matched with a very difficult pitcher to catch. Deduno is also prone to wild pitches. The Twins have one of the better catchers in the league at preventing wild pitches. It is surprising they didn't use him more often with their wild pitch prone starter. Listed below are the other starters and relievers where there were at least 100 chances. Ricky Nolasco is not listed. Suzuki has been his catcher for every pitch thrown. Kevin Correia Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 240 75.1 69 -8.1% Kurt Suzuki 569 182.7 173 -5.3% Phil Hughes Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 87 33.6 34 1.2% Kurt Suzuki 698 265.7 249 -6.3% Kyle Gibson Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 60 17.6 16 -9.1% Kurt Suzuki 709 223.8 195 -12.9% Mike Pelfrey Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 184 60.4 51 -15.6% Kurt Suzuki 96 27 25 -7.4% Anthony Swarzak Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 118 26.3 29 10.3% Kurt Suzuki 230 83.1 83 -0.1% Casey Fien Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 63 19.9 22 10.6% Kurt Suzuki 192 84.5 81 -4.1% Brian Duensing Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 114 34.6 31 -10.4% Kurt Suzuki 152 48.5 42 -13.4% In the small samples of a split, Pinto had more difficulty with Pelfrey and Correia and fared better with Duensing, Fien, Swarzak, Gibson and Hughes. Faring better is relative. It is relative to Suzuki. I am not suggesting Pinto is a good pitch framer. He isn't. Neither is Suzuki. I don't think there is anything in the data to suggest that Pinto's pitch framing is so poor that he shouldn't be a major league catcher. He just turned 25. He will get better. The numbers will improve. When he returns, the Twins might consider matching him up with pitchers who have better command than Deduno. He needs to refine his skill with better confidence that the pitch will end up somewhere near his target.

Was shortstop as important defensive position in the deadball era? I don't think the defensive spectrum would be the same. Catcher was a position where defense was a high priority. Somehow Bill Bergen played nearly 1000 games. In 1909 his OPS+ was 1 while being the regular catcher. After catcher, third base was very difficult. Fielding bunts and foul balls were part of every inning. It was a defense first position. For some reason Wagner did not stay at 3B and was not the regular SS until age 29 after playing OF and 1B. His defensive skills included his great arm which gave him range and good hands. His large feet caused some problems. It is hard to find first hand accounts of his defense. You can see quotes from contemporaries, but they are after the fact. It would be interesting to read accounts written before he moved to SS. I don't think a player with the same skill set would be a SS in today's context. He would look more like Miguel Cabrera or Miguel Sano. Comparing Jeter to Wagner is very difficult when the defensive demands on the position have changed.

The foundations of the two previous successful runs were set using young players. Those teams did poorly in the win/loss column but grew together into very good teams. The Twins tried from 1993-1998 to patch with decline phase veterans winning as many as 78 games. They changed direction in 1999 and took a beating. They also began their 4 year climb towards 94 wins. As the Twins make plans for the second half this year and the next few years, will those plans be built on the foundation of young players or the patchwork of decline phase veterans?

I am wondering how Pinto and Vargas get enough plate appearances to become proven. It may take 1000 major league plate appearances as a batter and league continue to adjust to each other. Pinto and Vargas are not going to learn how to hit major league pitching in the minors. They can demonstrate an ability to hit minor league pitching. They will need a chance to struggle in the majors. That can't happen on the bench watching Morales. The Twins need to make the call on Pinto soon. Is there a chance he can be a catcher? If so, they need to get him behind the plate regularly. It might be wise to break him in with someone other than one of the most difficult pitchers to catch in Deduno. If he isn't going to be a regular catcher, then they need to put him at DH regularly.

The reviews Suzuki's defense have always been mixed. It is hard to find data that shows he is a good defensive catcher. The pitch framing numbers are consistently poor. He has poor numbers throwing out runners. Since he played with two teams in 2012 and 2013, it gave an opportunity to compare against several other pitchers. I compared strike out and walk rates. http://twinsdaily.com/entry.php/4837-Kurt-Suzuki-Signed-to-be-the-starter I used three years of data and 12000 batters faced for the sample. Over three years, the other 12 catchers have a 23% better strikeout walk ratio, a strikeout rate that is 9% better and a walk rate that is 11% lower. Parker wrote that Suzuki's pitch calling included more fastballs than any other catcher. Suzuki has poor pitch framing numbers but... Suzuki has poor numbers throwing out runners but... With Suzuki catching, pitchers walked more batters and struck out fewer batters but... He is good at blocking pitches. BP ranks Suzuki 8th this year (7th, 14th and 7th the previous 3 years) in blocking pitches. He is credited with 1 run prevented this year due to preventing wild pitches and passed balls.

They have been winning with Eric Farris. I would think his hard work this year deserves at least a spot in the poll. http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/extra-bases/2014/07/08/red-wings-farris-center-of-attention/12386865/

Any judgment of the Aiken/Astros situation needs to wait until after the deadline. Right now it is both sides using the press to negotiate with the MLPBA also trying to leverage the situation. By July 18, Aiken may be an Astro and all of this noise a mere distraction.

The Twins have drafted several college relievers over the last 4 years. Several the Twins have put in the rotation. Tyler Duffy is among them. Will he be the first to start a major league game?

Real improvement will be any that is carried into next year. There are some players that we can have more confidence as part of the solution than last year at the break. Brian Dozier, Eduardo Escobar, Phil Hughes and Kyle Gibson all improved their stock in the last year. Trevor Plouffe and Chris Parmelee show signs that they are capable of being a role player on a good major league team. Glen Perkins and Casey Fien continue to be solid in the bullpen. Danny Santana has shown a glimpse of the player he might become in his small sample. Trevor May looked like he might be a reliever last year and now there is hope of a mid rotation starter. Kurt Suzuki has outperformed anyone's expectations and has increased his market value. This is exactly what you hope for when signing a veteran coming off a bad season. They have an opportunity to cash in on his performance and consider resigning him in the winter. Let's hope we can add Alex Meyer, Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia and Josmil Pinto to the list in a year. On the other hand, Joe Mauer and Ricky Nolasco are critical to the teams success in 2015-2017. They need to approach their previous level of performance when they return this year.