Interesting piece. I wonder to what degree, if any, the new "need" to pull the ball is elevating his K rate.
Shifting the outfield on Mauer is nothing new. They've done that for the last couple years. This year may be more extreme, but he's had just a lot of bad luck. Shifts will take care of fly balls a lot more than line drives, but Mauer's had a lot of line drives caught. His batting average on line drives is just .622. The MLB average is above .700. Joe's career average is .740. His average last year was .777.
I think the problem is that he got old over night.
Man, I did 2 triathlons and a 1/2 marathon in a row, and recovery has been... tough. Let's hope I didn't get old over night.
I think the problem is that he got old over night.
So does that mean Moss is an everyday player? Well ... maybe. But as Zaidi says -- and now we're getting to perhaps the most significant point of Moneyball II -- the A's do not take anything for granted. They do not go into the season believing that ANYBODY will get 600 plate appearances or make 35 starts or will have as good a year as last year. Billy Beane makes it clear: They will not make decisions based on what they hope will happen. Optimism is not a strategy.
A lesson that could be applied to center field at Target Field....
And the starting rotation, and the bench, and...
Optimism is not a strategy.
I thought I wanted "it's never nothing" engraved on my tombstone. I think there's a new leader in the clubhouse.
but is it a tactic?
What's the difference?? 😛
I think optimism is more of a maneuver than a strategy or tactic.
I laughed at that, too. I might name my next fantasy team "Optimistic Strategy".
Of course, it was only 34 plate appearances. The A's are too shrewd to put too much stock in that; most teams are. They gave Donaldson another chance at the start of the 2012 season ... and their image of Donaldson being overmatched was confirmed. After 100 plate appearances through June, Donaldson was hitting .156 with one walk. That would be: ONE WALK. It was over. The A's sent Donaldson down and, at age 26, there seemed no reason to believe he would be back.
But here's the point: That A's try not to believe in fuzzy concepts like the Quad-A player. True, some great Class AAA hitters failed multiple times in the Major Leagues. But the A's think many more were simply written off too soon. "Billy has us ask one question all the time," Zaidi says. "In this case: If Josh Donaldson were on another team, would he be the sort of player we would really want to trade for? The answer was yes."
The A's called Donaldson back up in August and made him the everyday third baseman. He hit .290 with power the rest of the way ... and he has been one of the best players in baseball ever since.
This made me think that I should rethink my opposition to Plouffe and CCPP.
When I read this I immediately thought of Plouffe, who has been quite valuable so far this year.
And it also made me wish the Twins had some CF options so that Hicks could get some time at AAA working on being exclusively a RH batter.
Right. I think Hicks as an exclusively RH batter/platoon/defensive sub still has a lot of value.
We don't platoon here much -- never have, Tom Kelly hated it, and Ron Gardenhire I don't think is all that excited about platooning. I don't think he likes to platoon players at all. I don't either. Put guys out there that are everyday players, then you don't have to platoon. You're always looking for players that can play 162 games, right? That's what I'm looking for. I don't go out looking for platoon players.
-- Terry Ryan, general manager of the Minnesota Twins
I don't know how much straight platooning T.K. did, but he was very good at spotting his bench players against pitchers they could hit. Yes, you're always looking for players that can play 162 games, but the reason you're always looking for them is that they're hard to find.
My recollection and impression of TK is that he utilized his bench fairly extensively, even if it was not by "platooning". If you were on the active roster, you were going to get some opportunities to play.
The 1991 World Championship team featured a platoon at 3rd base.
And Randy Bush had 193 plate appearances that season with just two (TWO(!!!2!!2!!!) against LHP. It takes Gardy two games for CCPP to face that many same-sided pitchers.
But, TK hated platoons! Just go get guys that can play every day!
I have no idea what you are talking about. Pags played against both lefties and righties.
Of course, Leius was a rookie in 1991. Doesn't count. Everyone knows TK didn't trust rookies.
I love that you looked that up.
Hey, I work for the gubmint.
Jacque Jones started 5 games in 2001 (TK's final year) against a lefty pitcher. He started 33 games against a lefty pitcher in 2002.
Might not be the best comparison.
Year
Age
Tm
Lg
G
PA
AB
R
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
SB
CS
BB
SO
BA
OBP
SLG
OPS
OPS+
TB
2001
26
MIN
AL
149
520
475
57
131
25
0
14
49
12
9
39
92
.276
.335
.417
.751
96
198
2002
27
MIN
AL
149
626
577
96
173
37
2
27
85
6
7
37
129
.300
.341
.511
.852
123
295
A large part of the increase in production came from facing RHP (+.158 OPS), but he also improved against LHP (+.166 OPS).
I had an awesome 1985 Strat-o-matic team, and players were either superstars or ungodly platooners, and then there was Kirby Puckett. He was a step below the Rickey Hendersons and Mike Schmidts, but didn't have enough oomph to work as a platoon.
Anyway, you'd think that a team like the Twins that played so many players outside of their defensive positions would at least be doing it to create a platoon advantage. well, whatever
Whimper.
By the way, during the Gardenhire era, number of players who have played every game: 1. The average number of games played by the team leader in games played in Gardenhire era: 153.5. So, if they want guys who play 162, they aren't going a good job of filling that want.
just symptomatic of the Mauer Era....
I wouldn't relegate Hicks to platoon status yet, though I do think he'd benefit from getting some RH reps against AAA RHPs if he's going to ditch switch hitting.
Fully agree with this.
I'd actually agree with this too - I just meant to be describing what I suspect is his floor, and that it has value.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that the Twins braintrust in general needs to be much better at effectively using their resources. One example I think of often is Carlos Gomez. He was largely relegated to a bench player or playing in a corner outfield position. He was a better defender than Span. And he was raw. He should've been playing CF in AAA. And an outfield with Gomez in CF and Span in LF or RF would've hidden whatever statue we played in the other corner. But he sat on the bench. And pinch ran. And then was traded at probably his lowest value.
It frustrates me today to see Pinto on the bench for weeks here. Last night, I would have much rather had Pinto at bat with 2 on, down by 4 in the 8th than Suzuki. But hey I'd almost always rather have him batting than Suzuki. Or at least getting regular reps in AAA.
They're not going to get better making the same damn mistakes over and over.
In view of all this, I think it is the duty of the local beat reporters to keep a running tab of Joe Mauer's batting average with RISP and two outs and tweet it out after each failed PA as if that were the only problem this club has.
I just started following Berardino a couple days ago, and I almost unfollowed him after that exchange.
I've been watching that for a while and last night, when he and others started in again after two consecutive doubles, I thought I'd push bask. PA, to his credit, retweeted my tweet about Mauer's career numbers with RISP and RISP with 2 outs.
Bernardino seems to think that beginning last year that Joe Mauer, despite his great year last year, became "unclutch" after putting up stellar numbers in RISP situations for the first nine years of his career. Wowza.
Exactly. How does a guy suddenly not become clutch, if there is such a thing. If he's hurt or old, all his numbers go down, not SSS situational crap like that.
For the sake of accuracy, Gomez only played CF for the Twins, but both the Brewers and Mets used him at times in the corners. Gomez also mainly started his first year with the Twins. He started less his second year, but he also hit worse. I'm not sure that his playing time was all that out of line with his performance at the time. I still thought he was great, but at the time and even in retrospect, I think the Gomez for Hardy deal was a good trade since the Twins had more reason to think they'd be weak at SS than in CF. I also think that Hardy was pretty fair value for Gomez. Getting rid of Hardy was the stupid part of all that.
Also, for the sake of argument, the Twins were the team that essentially advocated for Gomez in the first place, despite everyone saying that he was a terrible return for a pitcher who was asking for the equivalent of a max contract (that he wouldn't live up to), and that the Twins should have held out for Fernando Martinez, who turned out to be a nobody.
I think I see the overall point you're making, but I don't think Gomez is a great example of that. I think Gomez is more an example of Gardy being unable to deal with certain personality types more than anything. If Gomez had Torii Hunter's personality, he almost certainly would have been with the Twins until his first big FA deal.
Getting rid of Hardy was the stupid part of all that.
Co-sign.
Signed: WGOM.
Hm. I should know better than to rely on my memory. It is terrible. I could've sworn he was thrown into the outfield as a defensive replacement in the corners from time to time.
I guess the point I was trying to make was that when Gardy is not divvying up playing time in a way that is the best for the development of those players or the team, because of personality type or because of an irrational fear of losing his catcher or whatever, it is detrimental to the team's long term success and I find it very frustrating. Suzuki has been alright this year, but I think Pinto obviously has a hell of a lot larger chance to make a difference on the team when they're good again. I don't want to watch them stunt his development to win 75 games this year. Gomez is maybe not the best example, but when he was scuffling in 2009 it would've been a hell of a lot better for the team to send him to AAA and work on things than to let him rot on the bench. Maybe they still would've traded him for Hardy, but I just think it does a developing player any good to sit on the bench.
And yeah, getting rid of Hardy being a mistake is incredibly stupid. A move which was partially due to Gardenhire wanting "faster" infielders, according to the braintrust. Puke.
They did use Gomez as a sub a bunch, I think they just always stuck him in center and moved Span or whoever else to the corners.
As I've gotten older, I'm less hard line about how many PAs a player needs in a season to keep developing. I'm not sure that a season or two of 300-400 PA for a player sets him back that far, if at all, especially if they are avoiding the toughest match-ups where they may be overmatched enough that it won't be too useful for them to take the PA.
But, yeah, Gardy does make some decisions that are just hard to understand, or easy to understand but difficult to justify.
Zack, you may be remembering Revere being moved to the corners while keeping Span in center.
"We want pitchers who throw strikes," Zaidi says.
Or the Twins corollary, pitchers who don't throw balls
And players who don't have any balls (end Reusse rant).
Hey if you didn't get Replacements tickets may I offer this as an alternative that same day...
So, a former classmate of mine from the University of Minnesota, Doug Argue, will have two of his huge paintings installed in the lobby of One World Trade Center when it opens in 2015. Not too bad for a guy that dropped out the BFA program and never looked back.
Did he have a professor tell him he didn't have what it takes?
(Cool stuff.)
As I recall, a number of them didn't like his work, in part because he was using everything he could get his hands on--house paint, enamel, cardboard, sheet metal--you name it. And he was always working on something, usually big pieces. They were all over the building. I remember a certain prof kicking one of his sheet metal paintings that was leaned up against the wall and cursing. Still, he had a work ethic that put all of us to shame. His talent eventually broke through after he left school. He was nice guy, but a hard nut to crack. Lot of mystery, but he always had this quiet intensity that just burned. (And yeah, his latest work is very cool.)
I am familiar with his chickens painting from the Weisman.
Which is to say, I've seen it twice or three times in my life and I saw it in the background on one of the photos on the "News" page and I immediately recognized it
That would be cool. Before I move, though, do you know any good towing services in that town?
I think I can hook you up.
A kid who was part of my North Sioux City church just got drafted by the Coulee Region Chill of the NAHL. I'm hoping one of our hockey fans can enlighten me further, but it sounds like this is a pretty big deal.
The NAHL is the second tier of junior hockey in the US. I have no idea how many players go from there to professional hockey or anything (some go from Juniors to college to pro, so it can be a long timeline), but getting drafted by a Junior A team is a big deal.
Hey Rowsdower, they found a use for that eyesore that used to be the site of the old UP HQ.
Topical...
ID the AU -- identify the Twins player (current or former or soon-to-be future) with this signature:
Shoulda checked out the hint. I still wouldn't have gotten it, but I wouldn't have missed quite so badly.
Got it with the hint. Didn't know where to start before that though.
My guess wasn't even good enough to put in a comment. That was a rough one even after the hint.
That is all I can see now.
Parker Hageman looks at how the shift has been killing Mauer.
Interesting piece. I wonder to what degree, if any, the new "need" to pull the ball is elevating his K rate.
Shifting the outfield on Mauer is nothing new. They've done that for the last couple years. This year may be more extreme, but he's had just a lot of bad luck. Shifts will take care of fly balls a lot more than line drives, but Mauer's had a lot of line drives caught. His batting average on line drives is just .622. The MLB average is above .700. Joe's career average is .740. His average last year was .777.
I think the problem is that he got old over night.
Man, I did 2 triathlons and a 1/2 marathon in a row, and recovery has been... tough. Let's hope I didn't get old over night.
The Oakland A's are smart.
I read that last night. Good article.
Also, yes they are.
Excellent article. Thanks for the share.
A lesson that could be applied to center field at Target Field....
And the starting rotation, and the bench, and...
Optimism is not a strategy.
I thought I wanted "it's never nothing" engraved on my tombstone. I think there's a new leader in the clubhouse.
but is it a tactic?
What's the difference?? 😛
I think optimism is more of a maneuver than a strategy or tactic.
I laughed at that, too. I might name my next fantasy team "Optimistic Strategy".
This made me think that I should rethink my opposition to Plouffe and CCPP.
When I read this I immediately thought of Plouffe, who has been quite valuable so far this year.
And it also made me wish the Twins had some CF options so that Hicks could get some time at AAA working on being exclusively a RH batter.
Right. I think Hicks as an exclusively RH batter/platoon/defensive sub still has a lot of value.
-- Terry Ryan, general manager of the Minnesota Twins
I don't know how much straight platooning T.K. did, but he was very good at spotting his bench players against pitchers they could hit. Yes, you're always looking for players that can play 162 games, but the reason you're always looking for them is that they're hard to find.
My recollection and impression of TK is that he utilized his bench fairly extensively, even if it was not by "platooning". If you were on the active roster, you were going to get some opportunities to play.
The 1991 World Championship team featured a platoon at 3rd base.
And Randy Bush had 193 plate appearances that season with just two (TWO(!!!2!!2!!!) against LHP. It takes Gardy two games for CCPP to face that many same-sided pitchers.
But, TK hated platoons! Just go get guys that can play every day!
I have no idea what you are talking about. Pags played against both lefties and righties.
Leius too.
Of course, Leius was a rookie in 1991. Doesn't count. Everyone knows TK didn't trust rookies.
I love that you looked that up.
Hey, I work for the gubmint.
Jacque Jones started 5 games in 2001 (TK's final year) against a lefty pitcher. He started 33 games against a lefty pitcher in 2002.
Might not be the best comparison.
A large part of the increase in production came from facing RHP (+.158 OPS), but he also improved against LHP (+.166 OPS).
I had an awesome 1985 Strat-o-matic team, and players were either superstars or ungodly platooners, and then there was Kirby Puckett. He was a step below the Rickey Hendersons and Mike Schmidts, but didn't have enough oomph to work as a platoon.
Anyway, you'd think that a team like the Twins that played so many players outside of their defensive positions would at least be doing it to create a platoon advantage. well, whatever
Whimper.
By the way, during the Gardenhire era, number of players who have played every game: 1. The average number of games played by the team leader in games played in Gardenhire era: 153.5. So, if they want guys who play 162, they aren't going a good job of filling that want.
just symptomatic of the Mauer Era....
I wouldn't relegate Hicks to platoon status yet, though I do think he'd benefit from getting some RH reps against AAA RHPs if he's going to ditch switch hitting.
Fully agree with this.
I'd actually agree with this too - I just meant to be describing what I suspect is his floor, and that it has value.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that the Twins braintrust in general needs to be much better at effectively using their resources. One example I think of often is Carlos Gomez. He was largely relegated to a bench player or playing in a corner outfield position. He was a better defender than Span. And he was raw. He should've been playing CF in AAA. And an outfield with Gomez in CF and Span in LF or RF would've hidden whatever statue we played in the other corner. But he sat on the bench. And pinch ran. And then was traded at probably his lowest value.
It frustrates me today to see Pinto on the bench for weeks here. Last night, I would have much rather had Pinto at bat with 2 on, down by 4 in the 8th than Suzuki. But hey I'd almost always rather have him batting than Suzuki. Or at least getting regular reps in AAA.
They're not going to get better making the same damn mistakes over and over.
In view of all this, I think it is the duty of the local beat reporters to keep a running tab of Joe Mauer's batting average with RISP and two outs and tweet it out after each failed PA as if that were the only problem this club has.
I just started following Berardino a couple days ago, and I almost unfollowed him after that exchange.
I've been watching that for a while and last night, when he and others started in again after two consecutive doubles, I thought I'd push bask. PA, to his credit, retweeted my tweet about Mauer's career numbers with RISP and RISP with 2 outs.
Bernardino seems to think that beginning last year that Joe Mauer, despite his great year last year, became "unclutch" after putting up stellar numbers in RISP situations for the first nine years of his career. Wowza.
Exactly. How does a guy suddenly not become clutch, if there is such a thing. If he's hurt or old, all his numbers go down, not SSS situational crap like that.
For the sake of accuracy, Gomez only played CF for the Twins, but both the Brewers and Mets used him at times in the corners. Gomez also mainly started his first year with the Twins. He started less his second year, but he also hit worse. I'm not sure that his playing time was all that out of line with his performance at the time. I still thought he was great, but at the time and even in retrospect, I think the Gomez for Hardy deal was a good trade since the Twins had more reason to think they'd be weak at SS than in CF. I also think that Hardy was pretty fair value for Gomez. Getting rid of Hardy was the stupid part of all that.
Also, for the sake of argument, the Twins were the team that essentially advocated for Gomez in the first place, despite everyone saying that he was a terrible return for a pitcher who was asking for the equivalent of a max contract (that he wouldn't live up to), and that the Twins should have held out for Fernando Martinez, who turned out to be a nobody.
I think I see the overall point you're making, but I don't think Gomez is a great example of that. I think Gomez is more an example of Gardy being unable to deal with certain personality types more than anything. If Gomez had Torii Hunter's personality, he almost certainly would have been with the Twins until his first big FA deal.
Co-sign.
Signed: WGOM.
Hm. I should know better than to rely on my memory. It is terrible. I could've sworn he was thrown into the outfield as a defensive replacement in the corners from time to time.
I guess the point I was trying to make was that when Gardy is not divvying up playing time in a way that is the best for the development of those players or the team, because of personality type or because of an irrational fear of losing his catcher or whatever, it is detrimental to the team's long term success and I find it very frustrating. Suzuki has been alright this year, but I think Pinto obviously has a hell of a lot larger chance to make a difference on the team when they're good again. I don't want to watch them stunt his development to win 75 games this year. Gomez is maybe not the best example, but when he was scuffling in 2009 it would've been a hell of a lot better for the team to send him to AAA and work on things than to let him rot on the bench. Maybe they still would've traded him for Hardy, but I just think it does a developing player any good to sit on the bench.
And yeah, getting rid of Hardy being a mistake is incredibly stupid. A move which was partially due to Gardenhire wanting "faster" infielders, according to the braintrust. Puke.
They did use Gomez as a sub a bunch, I think they just always stuck him in center and moved Span or whoever else to the corners.
As I've gotten older, I'm less hard line about how many PAs a player needs in a season to keep developing. I'm not sure that a season or two of 300-400 PA for a player sets him back that far, if at all, especially if they are avoiding the toughest match-ups where they may be overmatched enough that it won't be too useful for them to take the PA.
But, yeah, Gardy does make some decisions that are just hard to understand, or easy to understand but difficult to justify.
Zack, you may be remembering Revere being moved to the corners while keeping Span in center.
Or the Twins corollary, pitchers who don't throw balls
And players who don't have any balls (end Reusse rant).
Hey if you didn't get Replacements tickets may I offer this as an alternative that same day...
https://www.grandcasinomn.com/events-detail-popup.aspx?eventid=3042&keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=487&width=855
That's actually the next day. I can go to both shows! (And I have seen 4 of the 9 already.)
The No. 1 thing Seattle police officers noticed Sunday at the East Precinct station was a fire in the alley. The next thing was No. 2.
So, a former classmate of mine from the University of Minnesota, Doug Argue, will have two of his huge paintings installed in the lobby of One World Trade Center when it opens in 2015. Not too bad for a guy that dropped out the BFA program and never looked back.
Did he have a professor tell him he didn't have what it takes?
(Cool stuff.)
As I recall, a number of them didn't like his work, in part because he was using everything he could get his hands on--house paint, enamel, cardboard, sheet metal--you name it. And he was always working on something, usually big pieces. They were all over the building. I remember a certain prof kicking one of his sheet metal paintings that was leaned up against the wall and cursing. Still, he had a work ethic that put all of us to shame. His talent eventually broke through after he left school. He was nice guy, but a hard nut to crack. Lot of mystery, but he always had this quiet intensity that just burned. (And yeah, his latest work is very cool.)
I am familiar with his chickens painting from the Weisman.
Which is to say, I've seen it twice or three times in my life and I saw it in the background on one of the photos on the "News" page and I immediately recognized it
JeffA, maybe you should move to Eagan.
That would be cool. Before I move, though, do you know any good towing services in that town?
I think I can hook you up.
A kid who was part of my North Sioux City church just got drafted by the Coulee Region Chill of the NAHL. I'm hoping one of our hockey fans can enlighten me further, but it sounds like this is a pretty big deal.
The NAHL is the second tier of junior hockey in the US. I have no idea how many players go from there to professional hockey or anything (some go from Juniors to college to pro, so it can be a long timeline), but getting drafted by a Junior A team is a big deal.
[not here]