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During the already-legendary Game 2 of the ALDS against the Houston Astros, Pablo Lopez found himself in a bit of trouble. He had runners on the corner with Chas McCormick at the plate. Pitching coach Pete Maki made his first and only visit to Lopez during the game. After telling him to hit the gas, Maki repeated a phrase he told several pitchers throughout the season. “I’ll see you in the dugout in 30 seconds.” As the season now comes to a close, even with the ups and downs of the playoffs, much of the success has to go to the pitching and the decision to retain Pete Maki after he stepped into the role during the 2022 season. The Twins finished first in ERA among their starters with only six innings behind the innings leaders. They led the league in strikeouts. While the bullpen struggled during some of the more injury prone months, they still placed fourth in Win Probability Added for the second half. And finally, Lopez threw one of the greatest pitching performances in Twins playoff history. This all happened under Maki, who took over after what seemed like at least a decade of questionable seasons. Coaching is hard to evaluate, but when you can see improvement in practically every pitcher on the roster, you have to begin to look for a commonality. The front office set Maki up for success, but he took full advantage during his first full year as the lead pitching coach. In what feels like a millennium in baseball years, it is easy to forget that Maki fell into the job. In July last year, college guru Wes Johnson shocked the organization by departing for Louisiana State University (where he assisted in building overall #1 draft pick Paul Skenes). At the time, Maki worked as the bullpen coach after spending time in the organization’s minor league system. Maki joined the Twins organization from Duke as the Minor League Pitching Coordinator the same year that Johnson was named the Twins pitching coach. Johnson and Maki’s temperament could not feel more different. Johnson was a laughable and dominating presence, always ready to break things down and talk a big game. Maki was more of the silent type, with a slim figure and a stone face reminiscent of Buster Keaton. He has a scholarly knowledge of music and can break down chords as well as he does discussing the mechanics of a curveball. It came as a bit of a surprise after 2022’s disappointing season that the Twins announced that Maki would remain in the top job only days into the offseason. Fans perhaps wanted an overhaul on staffing—nothing personal to Maki, but the bitter disappointment of the season suggested new directions. But players were strongly in favor of keeping the new man. Maki proved every doubter wrong. The evidence of Maki’s new program came apparent in spring training when it seemed every pitcher had added a couple of miles of velocity on their fastball. Only Jhoan Duran had previously hit 100mph for the team; now it seemed most of the bullpen could at least threaten it. Duran meanwhile threatened an ungodly 105mph. Then came the sweepers, a pitch that has in many ways taken over baseball. Maki sat down with Lopez as he entered the org and asked him basically whether or not he would be interested in the data room. Lopez took the bait, and came out as one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League this year. Sonny Gray came into spring training with pounds of muscle on his legs. That came from discussions with Maki that began as soon as the offseason began in order to find extra velocity on the aging pitcher. Joe Ryan dropped a slider that had become ineffective. Emilio Pagan, ironically named Cleveland’s MVP in 2022, at times looked like the best option out of the pen. Maki’s background is not that of usual coaches. His college assignments were not the D1 powerhouses, but instead in the Ivy League at Columbia and then Duke. And like Johnson before him, the Twins targeted him a bit unconventionally rather than examine other minor league teams where success is more likely to transfer over. And yet, he remained a data scientist-like presence for the pitchers throughout the season. Maki made ninety minute meetings into thirty. While not every playoff game was as they expected, the Twins pitching was core to their postseason success. For once, the team’s bullpen was not a disaster waiting in the wings, but instead often a total game shutdown. While down 3-1 during Game 4, there was a period where the bullpen delivered on fifteen consecutive outs. After trouble with Yordan Alvarez through the entire series, the slugger went one for four at the plate with just a single to his name. You can be sure as hell that was a Maki adjustment for each of those pitchers. If there is one person worth getting a big raise to keep him around for years, Pete Maki earned it this season.

On June 19, I wrote a piece on Louie Varland and his struggles with giving up an unpalatable amount of home runs. The primary determination was that Varland gave up so many home runs due to poor pitch placement and subpar pitch mix. Varland is a young pitcher not expected to be a main contributor for the 2023 Twins. So, the Twins optioned Varland to Triple-A to let him iron out the most significant flaw in his game before reappearing at the Major League level. Roughly one and a half months later, we are at a similar spot with another young Twins pitcher, Joe Ryan. Through his last seven starts and 32.1 innings pitched, Ryan has given up 16 home runs. Ryan has been so flawed that, as Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic noted, Ryan set a new Twins record over his dreadful seven-start stretch. When a starting pitcher who is traditionally very efficient is struggling, it's hard to pin it down to specific reasons, let alone one reason. Even so, watching Ryan struggle to such an intense degree over his last seven starts, some alarming tendencies are standing out. What are they? Well, let's take a look. Possible Reason For Ryan's Recent Poor Performance: Poor Pitch Selection and Bad Sequencing? The main reason why Ryan is struggling so intensely could be because he only has two effective pitches. Ryan's fastball is undoubtedly his best pitch, moving 11 inches towards right-handed batters, four inches better than league average, while dropping 17 inches, two inches better than league average. Ryan's fastball, which he throws 57.6% of the time, was dominant earlier in the season, exemplified in the nine-inning shutout he threw against the Boston Red Sox on June 22. Ryan attacked the zone, throwing his "rising fastball" middle up and up and in on hitters of both handednesses with the same efficacy. Watching Ryan pitch when he can dissect the opposing team's lineups with his fastball is a beautiful sight. Sadly, we have not had that experience for quite some time now. Another potential reason why Ryan's performance has fallen off such a cliff is that hitting coaches and hitters themselves may have caught on to Ryan's fastball. Typically, pitchers can adjust when this phenomenon occurs, but Ryan's offspeed pitches aren't good enough to complement his compromised fastball. The combination of Ryan's fastball no longer being as effective as it once was and his offspeed pitches not being effective enough to counteract when his fastball isn't working is why Ryan is beginning to look like a landmine waiting to explode every time he takes the mound. To further illustrate Ryan's struggles, here are Ryan's numbers over his last seven starts compared to the league average this season: Earned Runs Allowed (ERA) Ryan - 8.63 League Average - 4.31 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) Ryan - 8.10 League Average - 4.31 Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) Ryan - .413 League Average - .295 Home Runs per 9 Innings (HR/9) Ryan - 4.73 League Average - 1.20 Home Run to Fly Ball Ratio (HR/FB) Ryan - 32.1% League Average - 12.5% Admittedly, all of these statistics and Ryan's overall trend is alarming, but what is most discouraging is Ryan's HR/FB ratio of 32.1%. Over this dreadful seven-game stretch, Ryan has given up a home run on nearly one-third of every flyball he produced. This occurrence is especially discerning when considering that Ryan is a flyball pitcher, inducing flyballs or line drives in 67.3% of balls put in play off him. This upcoming statement is hyperbolic, but like Varland earlier this season, if Ryan cannot strike a hitter out, he is essentially pitching a glorified version of batting practice by Major League Baseball pitching standards. How Can Ryan Resolve This? The simple answer is to develop better off-speed pitches, particularly off-speed pitches that are more effective when facing right-handed hitters. To explain what I mean more in-depth, let's look at Ryan's splits this season: When Facing Left-Handed Hitters - 245 Batters Faced (BF), 46 H, 59 SO, 17 BB, 7 HR, 1.06 WHIP When Facing Right-Handed Hitters - 278 BF, 72 H, 93 SO, 8 BB, 18 HR, 1.20 WHIP Ryan has given up 11 more home runs to right-handed hitting batters while facing only 33 more this season. How could that be? The answer is likely subpar secondary pitch selection in certain situations. When facing right-handed hitters, also known as same-handed hitters, Ryan throws a mix of his fastball, split-finger, sweeper, and slider. While this is technically a four-pitch mix, Ryan almost exclusively uses his fastball and split-finger. Like most pitchers, Ryan's fastball works best when his other off-speed pitches complement it, but the off-speed pitch Ryan tends to throw most is his split-finger. Ryan throws his split-finger 28% of the time, 18 percentage points more than his sweeper and 24.5 percentage points more than his slider. Essentially, Ryan's sequence to same-handed hitters is working his fastball up in the middle of the zone and up in and in the zone and complements it by throwing his split-finger down, usually down and in but sometimes down and away depending on the hitter and situation at hand. Ryan's approach appears to need fixing, and with Ryan struggling with his command over his last seven starts, his fastball and split-finger are getting struck and over the fence at an alarming rate by right-handed hitters. A way to fix this issue would be for Ryan to use his sweeper and slider more. Although this is an easy fix, there is likely a reason why Ryan rarely uses his sweeper and slider. Could it be because pitching coach Pete Maki tells Ryan and the catcher calling his game to use his fastball and split-finger a combined 85.8% of the time? Possibly. But since we are on the outside, we will only truly know if it gets reported by someone with the Twins or if they leak or share that information with reliable reporters. Another possible option is that Ryan doesn't trust his sweeper or slider. Although Ryan doesn't use his sweeper or slider often, other Twins starting pitchers do. Here is how often other Twins starting pitchers use their sweeper or sliders: Sonny Gray - Sweeper (18.7%) Pablo López - Sweeper (20.9%) Kenta Maeda - Slider (35.8%) Bailey Ober - Slider (21.1%) On average, the Twins' four other starting pitchers use their sliders or sweepers 24.1% of the time, while Ryan uses his a combined 7.4% of the time. Considering Ryan's sweeper and slider are average if not slightly above average, it would likely be in the Twins and Ryan's best interest to jump his combined sweeper and slider usage from where it sits right now at 7.4% to how often López, Gray, and Ober use theirs, which hovers around 20.2% of the time. Ryan uses his fastball and split-finger to such an extreme extent that hitters on both sides of the plate can essentially scoff at his sweeper and slider as they know his fastball or split-finger will come eventually, as the odds are 85.8% in favor of that happening. Mixing Ryan's questionable pitch mix selection with it being likely that he is close to being if not already, burnt out as he hasn't missed a start and we are in the "dog days" of the Major League season, it is possible that a paradoxically appropriate perfect storm has occurred and Ryan is suffering from it. On August 2, the Twins placed Ryan on the 15-day IL with a left groin strain. Ryan's injury could have played an undetermined role in his struggles, but much of what has been happening with Ryan has been alarming, whether an injury is present. Increasing the usage of certain pitches this late into the season is arduous, and, likely, Ryan doesn't think his sweeper and slider should be used more than it is currently. Over the past seven starts, Ryan still has a Strikeout Percentage (K%) of 33.1%, 10.4 percentage points higher than the league average, and a Walk Percentage (BB%) of 6.4%, 2.2 percentage points better than the league average. Adding a high strikeout rate and low walk-out to the concept of regression to the mean itself, Ryan likely won't struggle as much as he has over his last seven starts. Will Ryan be able to return to his early season form? That is yet to be determined, but drastic changes in his approach are necessary to fix the monumental struggle he has endured since his June 27 start against the Atlanta Braves. What do you think Ryan needs to do to alleviate his immense struggles? Are you concerned about his future? Comment below.

We're trying something new for Twins Daily's Caretakers: an audio report from John Bonnes on what he's seeing and hearing from players, coaches, and management inside Hammond Stadium. Today's report includes: News on Jorge Polanco's slow ramp up in spring training, and whether is knee is already a concern Emilio Pagan's offseason, and why his first bullpen session was so encouraging Thoughts from pitching coach Pater Maki on camp and how the Twins are adjusting to the new pitching clock. If you're a Caretaker, click here for your exclusive content! And if you're not, maybe consider becoming a Caaretaker? You likely visit regularly, and that's going to become even more likely as the season gears up. Supporting something you value feels good, especially when it's been here feeding your baseball habit for over 10 years for free, right? We're in spring training reporting because we love this stuff, and we want to share it as much as we can, so you can find lot of free content from Fort Myers other places on the site. But unfortunately, spring training is expensive, and that's especially true this year after Hurricane Ian damaged a lot of the lodging options. Plus, there are lot of other benefits, like a free Winter Meltdown ticket and early access for guest, special callouts on the site, and lots more inside or in-depth content like this. So please consider joining our little club. The money is going to a site you love, to support coverage you love, and writers you value. Thank you so much. Join Here to support Twins Daily and get your exclusive content!

Having lost their top two starters to a deadline sell-off trade and Tommy John surgery, the Twins headed into last offseason with a barren rotation outlook. It was unclear exactly how Derek Falvey and Thad Levine would realistically be able to offset these big losses. Yes, they had money to spend. But the next premier frontline starting pitcher to choose Minnesota in free agency would be the first. Some creativity was gonna be needed to field a contending staff, and Levine hinted as much early on. The general manager's quotes led me to write a column around this time last year: Are the Twins About to Build a Radically Unconventional Pitching Staff? “I think with the challenge comes opportunity,” Levine had said. “We’re going to be as creative as we can be in terms of not being necessarily hemmed into the notion of it has to look exactly the way it has always looked. We may end up looking at this from the lens of how many multi-inning guys can we add to a staff and how far does that take us?” The Twins followed through on their foreshadowing ... to an extent. With their only stable veteran workhorses – José Berríos, Kenta Maeda, and Michael Pineda – out of the picture for 2022, the team didn't acquire proven inning-eaters to replace them. Instead, their pickups were Sonny Gray, Dylan Bundy, Chris Archer and Chris Paddack, none of whom had thrown even 140 innings the prior season. Meanwhile, the only rotation incumbents were Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober, who had thrown a collective 120 innings in the big leagues. The front office assembled a staff full of pretty good pitchers who were – almost uniformly – unequipped to provide any length, and so we saw Levine's vision more or less come to life: vast numbers of different arms rotating in and out to cobble together nine-inning games. The Twins used a franchise-record 38 different pitchers. Their starters averaged 4.8 innings, second-fewest in the American League. They used six or more different pitchers in a game 31 times. Radically unconventional indeed. And, had this approach been successful, you wouldn't hear me complaining. But clearly it was not. The Twins ranked 19th in ERA, 19th in FIP, 20th in fWAR. Even for a club that was built around the strength of its lineup, that's not nearly good enough. The plan, at its core, was not a terrible one: maximize the stuff of your pitchers in shorter stints, shield them from multiple trips through the order, and possibly reduce injuries from overuse. Alas, none of those supposed benefits came to fruition. So what went wrong, and what can we learn? Was the entire philosophy bunk, or was the execution botched? I would argue, probably more of the latter. There might be some merit to the concept, provided the Twins heed these lessons learned: The starters weren't good enough, or healthy enough, even in shortened starts. I don't dislike the idea of signing a cheap pitcher – who doesn't have the repertoire or durability to go deep – for the back of your rotation and unleashing him in highly effective 4-5 inning bursts. The problem is that this group lacked the capacity to be highly effective even with this usage. Bundy held his own the first time through the lineup, then got mashed the second time through (.291/.327/.534), often making the third time a moot point. Archer posted an 85 ERA+ despite almost never pitching past the fourth. He placed a heavy weight on the bullpen every fifth day, and rarely left them in a good spot. Meanwhile, the cautious management wasn't enough to prevent Ober, who only once threw even 90 pitches in a start, from being derailed by a season-ruining groin injury. It wasn't enough to prevent Gray, who grumbled about Rocco Baldelli's early hooks, from multiple significant hamstring injuries. If the Twins want an approach like this to pay dividends, they need to find pitchers who are actually capable of excelling in shorter starts (a la Andrew Heaney) and they need to better help their players physically adapt to the altered routines. You've got to have at least one starter who can be the workhorse. Even with all of the above being addressed, I still think you've got to have at least one starting pitcher in your rotation who you can count on to give you some length. This strategy built around five-and-flies, piggybacking and the like becomes a lot more palatable when there is a fixture like Berríos routinely firing 6-7 innings each time through the rotation. That likely contributed to the decision to acquire Tyler Mahle at the deadline. He threw 180 innings in 2021 (would've led the Twins by 60), and had completed six or more frames in eight of nine starts for the Reds leading up the trade. Of course, Mahle proved to be the opposite of a remedy for Minnesota, and now only adds to the uncertainty of a 2023 rotation in desperate need of stable and dependable durability. Their bullpen wasn't built adequately to handle the burden. This is what really gets me. Levine talked about "looking at this from the lens of how many multi-inning guys can we add to a staff," and then their only bullpen addition of the offseason was Joe Smith, who could barely be counted on for one inning. The Twins rarely carried anything resembling a long man on the staff, and would typically just march out endless one-inning relievers after short starts. This led to them frequently burning through all of their high-leverage arms on one night and burning out the back end of their bullpen for the next. To make a system like this work, you've got to have an array of arms capable of getting more than three outs on a regular basis. The routine of four-inning starts followed by 5-6 relievers is not a workable formula as we saw. Losing your pitching coach mid-season doesn't help. This one can't so much be blamed on the front office and their planning. It's difficult to anticipate such a disruptive event in the heart of your season, and Wes Johnson's abrupt departure made matters tougher as the Twins tried to hold together their experimental pitching staff through the second half. Pete Maki undoubtedly played a significant role in architecting this year's plan, and now, as the apparent choice going forward at pitching coach, he'll be able to more directly pull the strings and execute to his preferences. So, to summarize... The model of building a pitching staff with reduced emphasis on traditional 6-7 inning starters isn't bad in theory. Indeed, there's plenty of evidence that it is the inexorable direction of baseball at large. But if the Twins want to lean into this movement as they did in 2022, they need to get better at. That means: Filling the rotation with starters who can at least stay healthy and excel in 4-5 inning starts. Finding at least one workhorse type starter who can reliably give you 6+ innings each turn. Equipping the bullpen with enough firepower and multi-inning relievers to shoulder the load. Having one central mastermind oversee the operation (and if it's not working, find someone new). As you're looking through the options available in our bullpen chapter of the Offseason Handbook, these are lessons worth keeping in mind.

Earlier this week the Twins announced that Derek Falvey and Thad Levine had opted to keep the entirety of their coaching staff intact. Head trainer Michael Salazar was relieved of his duties, but Rocco Baldelli, Tommy Watkins, Jayce Tingler, Pete Maki, David Popkins, and the rest of the field staff were set to return. Maybe that’s shocking, but then again, maybe it shouldn’t be. Talking with a source in the Twins front office, there was a conversation less than two weeks ago that Minnesota had decided to move on from at least two individuals that have since been retained. That shift may have even surprised some within the organization, but if the front office has shown anything since their hiring, maybe we should have seen it coming. Falvey and Levine have always operated to the beat of their own drum, and they’ve been extremely process oriented. For the sake of organizational change, this line of thinking seems imperative. The tandem was handed Paul Molitor as their manager following the firing of Terry Ryan, and despite a Manager of the Year award that kept him around a bit longer, it never seemed like the sides' intentions were married. Minnesota’s front office has relied heavily on forward-thinking and process being able to drive results. The nature of that reality means having a coaching staff that can disseminate ideas and generates buy-in from players on the field. Former Twins reliever Ryan Pressly noted something along these lines when he touched on how the Houston Astros helped him to turn a corner. It’s in that reasoning that someone like pitching coach Pete Maki would be retained. The front office continues to invest heavily in pitching development. Encouraging signs from expected talents such as Josh Winder and Simeon Woods Richardson are necessary, but it’s the breakthroughs from the likes of Louie Varland, Bailey Ober, David Festa, and many others that should have fans believing that the system works. Wes Johnson was supposed to orchestrate it at the highest level but left for a payday too good to pass up from Louisiana State University. Maki was someone the Twins plucked from the college ranks as well, and although he may have been thrust into a situation sooner than anticipated, he’s been able to connect with his subjects. Maybe Minnesota could’ve made Popkins the fall guy for a terrible amount of run production with runners in scoring position, and maybe Watkins should’ve been held a bit more accountable on some egregious sends. Still, both have a substantial history in the game and have been able to generate production with this team. On the bench, Tingler brings previous managerial experience and has a wealth of knowledge to impart to a clubhouse he can certainly resonate with. As a whole, there’s more benefit for Falvey and Levine sticking with their guys than not. Salazar was in charge for two previous seasons of relative health, and although 2022 was disastrous, it’s hardly fair to suggest some level of substantial onus being on his plate. At the end of the day, this has always been publicly made about injuries, and therefore that’s the path of least resistance. Moving forward, Falvey and Levine must show they got it right. That starts with a reversal of production in 2023. The coaching staff can only do what the on-field talent gives them. Minnesota’s front office will again need to supplement a core that should compete, but advancing themselves along the edges is the goal of this team, and if there was a belief in those at the helm entering the season, it seems that remains for 2023 as well.

Less than a week ago, we learned that Wes Johnson was leaving the Twins to take the pitching coach job at Louisiana State University. He remained with the team through their series in Cleveland, but his time with the Twins is now complete. On Friday, the Twins officially named Pete Maki as their pitching coach. He has been working as the Twins bullpen coach since 2020 when Bob McClure was not able to assume the job due to Covid. The 39-year-old joined the Twins organization before the 2018 season as the minor league pitching coordinator. Like Johnson, Maki was hired out of the college ranks. He coached at the University of New Haven for two seasons. Then he became the assistant pitching coach at Columbia University from 2008 through 2015 when he became the pitching coach at Duke University where he remained until the Twins hired him. Luis Ramirez remains the Twins assistant pitching coach. Maki spent time in the Twins dugout the past couple of games to work with Johnson in that location in preparation for taking over the position. Colby Suggs was hired by the Twins before the 2019 season as an advanced scout. Before 2021, he was named the team's coordinator of run prevention. He actually pitched at the University of Arkansas from 2011 through 2013. He became the 73rd overall pick in the 2013 draft by the Marlins and spent four seasons pitching in their organization. He worked and coached at private facilities for a couple of years before being named the bullpen coach at his alma mater, the University of Arkansas where he worked with Wes Johnson. Speaking of Johnson, he took to Twitter to leave a message for Twins fans.

D1 Baseball's Kendall Rogers broke news today that LSU has hired Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson as their new pitching coach, resulting in a midseason change of one of the Twins' most important coaches. Johnson was hired prior to the 2019 season from Arkansas, where he was the pitching coach, a trailblazing move for a MLB team. Now he will return to that same conference as a rival team's pitching coach. Losing Johnson during the offseason would be a story in and of itself. The Twins pitching staff ranked 22nd in ERA (4.50) in 2018, the year before Johnson replace Garvin Alston. In 2019, they improved to 8th in the league with a 4.18 ERA. This year, the team ERA is 3.79, ranking 11th in the majors, despite pitching being perceived as the team's Achilles heal heading into the season. At the very least, he's been seen as a cornerstone in the organization's renewed focus on pitching over the last several years. Having the move happen in the middle of the baseball season, especially when the team is in first place in the AL Central, makes it a major story. Per Dan Hayes, the Twins just found out about his talks with LSU on Saturday. He also reports that his talks with the Twins did not include a request for more money. With the news being so unexpected, it is not clear what factors played into this sudden decision. Hayes does add that LSU was very aggressive, so it may be that he is just interested in LSU. They just completed their first season with new coach Jay Johnson, who guided them to a 40-22 record in the SEC, good for third place in the West. Aaron Gleeman reports that Johnson's tenure will end after this week's 5-game series versus the Cleveland Guardians. At that time his role will be filled by bullpen coach Pete Maki, although fully replacing him will be a group effort. Maki has been with the coaching staff since 2020, and been in the organization since 2017 when he joined them as their minor league pitching coordinator. More to come. Feel free to comment as additional news breaks.

Kohl Stewart on the 2019 offseason: “For the first time, with our program and what’s been implemented, I feel 100 percent confident with the plan they have in front of me and I feel like I can go out and execute it. I learned a lot last year whenever I got up in the big leagues for those eight appearances and I just feel like I knew exactly what I needed to do going into this offseason and I feel like I’m on a straight line, focused on what I’ve got to do.” Stewart on getting a shot with the Twins: “I wasn’t ready until this year. I didn’t ever buy in, I didn’t ever feel like I had a real good plan in place, I didn’t feel like I knew how to use the stuff that I had. And when I got to sit down with Josh Kalk and Pete Maki and all those guys in spring training and we talked about the one-seamer and we talked about throwing the cutter/slider off of it, throwing the curveball more often behind that, I finally felt like I was confident enough to actually be here. I never felt like that until this year.” “It’s a big hurdle. Everybody in the minor leagues, it’s always messing with your mind. ‘Am I ever going to get there, am I good enough, can I play up there with those guys?’ So to get up here and to finally experience it is pretty awesome, pretty special.” “I struggled for awhile in the minor leagues and finally this year, right after May I would say, I turned it on, I felt confident, I knew what to do on the mound, I had 100 percent confidence in what I was doing and it paid off.” “The meeting is spring training, it was so eye-opening talking to those guys. They found a whole bunch of pitchers I had similar stuff with based on movement plots and based on velocity. They basically said ‘this is how these guys use their stuff. This is how Roy Halladay uses his sinker and cutter. This is how Marcus Stroman uses his sinker and slider. Your stuff is very close, we can get it closer. We can use slow cameras, we can use the Rapsodo, we can help you create these pitches. Let’s see how these guys compliment their stuff and how they pitch.’” “So I spent a lot of time with Josh and those guys looking at that video, figuring out exactly what my plan was so by the time I took the mound in April, I knew exactly what I needed to do. And if I struggled in April and May, they said ‘look, you might go through some rough patches. This is new, it’s going to be hard for you to adjust.’ But once I had full confidence in what we were doing it was like, man, this pretty incredible.” Stewart on new pitching coach Wes Johnson: “Wes and I have talked a lot about my slider/cutter. We’re trying to get it a little bit more depth and a little bit more velocity and we think that they’ll tunnel a little bit better together so as a hitter it’ll be hard to account for those two things. Wes is pretty special at it. We’ve already talked about things like different pitch grips, moving the baseball around in my hand and how to make it happen. And we have actual data that can prove that it’s working, so it’s pretty awesome.” Stewart on heading into the 2019 season: “I never thought last year I’d be in the big leagues, but I never worried about it and I think that was why I was able to stay focused and not get too caught up in the transactions, playing GM when you’re in the minor leagues or on the verge of being in the big leagues. You just can’t get caught up in it, if you do, you’re going to lose track of what is in front of you.” “I probably will have a chance to start in Triple-A this year and I need to go down there and do my job and earn a spot. Everybody’s gotta earn it. There’s only 25 spots here and they’re not giving them away, so make them notice you.” Stewart was far from the only guy to reveal some interesting insights into what’s going on behind the scenes. Here are some more tidbits that I thought were particularly interesting: Rocco Baldelli on preparing for his rookie season as manager: “The prep that goes into everything going into the first year is kinda striking. It hits you when you realize you’re going to go over everything that goes on from top to bottom in all regards in all aspects. When you actually line it all up, it’s a lot, but it’s very important to do.” “You don’t change things just for the sake of changing them, but until you look at it all, you just don’t know. And after being in the same organization for basically my entire baseball career, except for one year, I had a lot to learn. I had a lot of people to get to know here. And trying to do all that in one offseason, it’s been a lot, but really at the end of the day the most important thing right now for me is getting down to Fort Myers and getting on the field.” “That’s actually what I’m looking forward to the most too, because I’m tired of talking, I’m ready to get out there and to watch these players.” Joe Mauer in response to a question about the opener/third time through the order: “I always say scouting reports go out the window after that first at bat. You’re making adjustments, he’s making adjustments. You’ve gotta figure out what your pitcher is capable of doing that day, not just what he should be doing.” “Brad Radke was one of the best all-time control pitchers of our game, of his time. One thing he told me that really stuck with me was out of his 36 starts, he might only have all four pitches working maybe four times. So what are you going to do when he has three pitches working? What are you going to do when he has two pitches working? So I took that as a hitter, as well, to kind of eliminate pitches.” Taylor Rogers on Eddie Guardado’s suggestion: “He pointed out one day that I could maybe throw a slider along with the curveball. So we worked on it for probably about a month or so, pregame and everything like that, and felt comfortable enough with it to bring it in the game and just got some immediate results with it. So I’m kinda looking forward to bringing ‘er back this year and working on it for an entire season.” There’s always a lot of prospects at TwinsFest. One of my favorite things about listening through all these interviews was hearing all the guys talk about the climb up through the minor leagues. Trevor Larnach on difference from college to pros: “Pro ball, there’s starters every night that go low to mid 90s or even high upper 90s. College, it’s more like maybe high 88/low 90s, they’re going to hit their spots, they’re going to try and really get you out as a pitcher. I think that really helped me out coming into pro ball. Coming to E-Town and Cedar Rapids, you’re facing some good arms every night so you kinda gotta be locked in, but at the same time, for me at least, I had the edge of an approach that I’ve developed throughout the years in college.” Royce Lewis on his first full season in pro ball: “There’s times where you can go super hard and there’s times where you can reel back a little bit. And then learning how to work off the field on your game, getting more rest, eating the right ways. I just ate Chick-fil-A all the time, that’s my favorite place to go. I started to stop eating that and started to cook home-cooked meals, so little things like that will help you get prepared for the game.” Brent Rooker on the jump from A-Ball to Double-A: “Once you get to Double-A there’s more experience on the pitching staff. The stuff is about the same as it is in High-A, it’s just a little bit more refined, they can kinda do what they want to with it. They have better pitch plans, better game plans against you, how they want to beat you, how they want to get you out. So the level of talent kind of stays the same, it’s just that those guys are a little bit more experienced and kinda have a better idea of what they want to do.” LaMonte Wade on the difference from Double-A to Triple-A: “The pitchers throw less fastballs in fastball counts at Triple-A. They have more command of all their pitches. They really know how to get you out. They’re veteran guys that have been there before. You face a lot of big leaguers rehabbing, a lot of ex-big leaguers still playing, so they know how to make outs. It’s always adjustments. It’s a game of adjustments, and I think in Triple-A you really see that.” Nick Gordon on the move up to Triple A: “It’s not so much about talent when you get to Triple-A. Everybody’s talented, everybody can play the game, that’s why they’re there. It’s about being smart, using your head and knowing situations, knowing the guy you’re facing the day before, knowing the team that you’re playing against, knowing who likes to shift, knowing who likes to do this and do that. I think really it’s about learning the game and being a student of the game is really what Triple-A brings to you.” Stephen Gonsalves on moving from Triple-A to the big leagues: “Everyone has that talent once you get to Triple-A but I think it’s that mental toughness. Guys go about their business a certain way. They all have their routines. They’re much more professional. It’s just a matter of trusting who you are as a person.” Even some of the less substantial questions and small talk was pretty enjoyable. While interviewing Lewis Thorpe, Dick Bremer mentioned that his son Eric was broadcasting games for the Brisbane Bandits in the Australian Baseball League. Bremer asked “is he eating well, is he doing OK?” Thorpe, who did color commentary alongside Bremer’s son for a few games, replied “yeah, he’s doing well, he hasn’t got eaten by a crocodile or anything like that” in his amazing Australian accent.