The Twins
announced on Tuesday that they have officially
declined the $12.5 million option on Joe Nathan for 2012. Yet, according to
general
manager Bill Smith, Nathan remains a very viable candidate to return to the
team for 2012, only on a lesser salary:
"I spoke with Joe and his agent this morning, and expressed our interest in re-signing [him]. We will remain in contact with them as we move forward into the free-agent process.”
In
the TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook,
we noted that the closer free agent pool is littered with similar arms to
Nathan and we pegged his as the fifth-best among right-handed closers on the
market. We estimated that his contract would be approximately two-years, $14
million – a very reasonable rate given his performance record, age and injury history.
The question is: Would that be a good investment for the Twins?
Yes, Nathan
came back a bit prematurely last year and was cuffed around (a
fact that was definitely predicted). From April through May, he worked 15.1
innings, allowed 15 runs on 17 hits and posted a sad 15/9 K/BB ratio. In that
time he received swinging strikes on another 8%. That figure was particularly
disheartening considering the lowest rate he held since converting to a closer
with the Twins was a 12% swinging strike rate.
Because of
these results, he went on the DL and then the Twins sent him to Rochester to
try to work through some stuff. ESPN1500’s
Phil Mackey reported that during his time with the minor league club,
Nathan was able to work through some scar tissue that had formed on his elbow,
providing him with a great range of motion in his throwing arm. After breaking
up the scar tissue, Nathan’s season got back on track. In his final 31
appearances, he worked 29.1 innings allowing only 11 runs and held a
significantly better 28/5 K/BB ratio coupled with an opponent average of .193
(not to mention, 11 saves in 12 opportunities). What’s more is that in the
season’s final two months, he had increased his swinging strike rate to 11%.
Thanks to dissipated
scar tissue, Nathan was able to turn his season around. First, he was able to
regain velocity on his fastball:
|
Joe Nathan’s 2011 Fastball Velocity
|
|
|
Month
|
Miles Per Hour
|
|
March/April
|
91.3
|
|
May
|
91.7
|
|
June
|
92.6
|
|
July
|
93.0
|
|
August
|
93.3
|
|
September/October
|
91.9
|
(via Fangraphs.com)
As you can
see, Nathan peaked a bit in August before losing some heat on his fastball.
This is perfectly normal. Due to it being his first year back since 2009 as
well as the natural
bell-curve effect of pitcher’s seasonal velocities, a decline at the end of
the season is not unexpected. Still, the improvement in not only his velocity
but also his fastball’s effectiveness in the second-half of the year was
impressive.
Since he no
longer had the build-up on his elbow restricting his motion, Nathan was able to
spin his slider – arguably his best pitch – better in the latter portion of the
year.
In the
first-half of the season, he struggled to locate the pitch where he wanted it.
You can see that visually here:
This
scatterplot of sliders resulted in a whiff rate of 13.3% on this pitch.
Comparatively, this was a pitch that held a 21.3% whiff rate from 2008 to 2009.
Clearly, lacking his velocity combined with a substandard slider, opponents
were able to tee up on the pitches they liked instead of fishing for a slider
darting out of the strike zone or a fastball above it.
Following his
recovery in Rochester, Nathan returned with a much more lethal slider. Over the
course of the next few months, he increased his whiff rate to 24.6% while
spotting his slider down-and-away from right-handed hitters:
This improved
secondary offering complemented his jazzed up fastball which changed hitter’s
line of vision much better than in the season’s first-half. The results were more strikeouts and less solid contact.
At 37 years
old in 2012, he’s no spring chicken but the progress he made in final three
months of 2011 signifies that he is certainly capable of holding down the
backend of the Twins bullpen for the next two seasons.
