Twins jump all-over Garcia, White Sox

The Twins reclaimed sole possession of first place of the AL Central by jumping all over Chicago starter Freddy Garcia and knocking him out prematurely en route to a 12-6 victory. While it may seem like a simple story of the Twins lineup seeing-ball-hitting-ball, there was much more preparation that presumably went into the team’s plan of attack against Garcia.

Garcia relies on a combination of speed changes and avoiding the middle part of the strike zone in order to navigate through a major league lineup with his substandard velocity (in fact, he has the 5th slowest fastball on average in the AL).  For the most part, Garcia chooses to stay away from the hitter’s swing by throwing the ball off the plate and enticing opponents into get themselves out. To left-handed opponents, Garcia dotted the outer-half of the plate 64% of the time, usually using his fastball that has more tail than the Playboy mansion. Righties have receive similar treatment, seeing pitches on the outer-half 57% of the time, but to his same-sided opponents, Garcia regularly deployed his changeup in hopes of getting those hitters to turn over on the pitch.

This approach, combined with 5.33 runs of support per game, aided in elevating the retread to a 10-4 record in spite of a bloated 4.62 xFIP on the season.

Prior to last night’s game, I tweeted that while Garcia loved to work away, the Twins had two very good hitters in Joe Mauer and Orlando Hudson that handled pitches on the outer-half extremely well. According to Inside Edge’s rankings through the well-hit average, Mauer’s .248 against pitches away was far and away the best in baseball while Hudson’s .169 well-hit average was the fourth best in the majors. This pair would work quickly to get the Twins on the board as Garcia played right into their strengths.

In the first inning, Garcia went to work on the left-handed hitting Hudson, hitting the outer-half of the plate with a mixture of pitches before hanging a curve middle-away that Hudson promptly hooked into the right field corner for a double. Mauer, following Hudson, took a changeup away for a ball before rifling the next pitch, a similarly located change, into the left-center field gap for back-to-back doubles to score Hudson for the first run of the game.

What I had failed to mention (or rather ran out of room in the strict 140-character limitations set by Twitter) was that the Twins had an entire stable of hitters that are very adept at covering the entire strike zone with authority. While not technically qualified among baseball’s leaders due to their lower total of plate appearances, both Jim Thome (.159 well-hit average) and J.J. Hardy (.115) were also much better than the league’s average (.095) at hitting pitches on the outer-half of the strike zone.

With the Twins holding on to their 1-0 lead in the second, Garcia tried to sneak a fastball away to Jim Thome who went with the pitch and drove it into the left field stands for his 15th home run of the year. After retiring Danny Valencia on a groundball, Garcia worked Hardy to a 2-2 count and flipped him a slider that the right-handed Hardy yanked into the left field bleachers as well.

This foursome punished Garcia’s approach thoroughly and chased him from the ballgame in the third inning with a secure 5-0 lead. Jumping out to a one-nothing lead in the three game series bodes well for the Twins yet Wednesday’s opposition, John Danks, isn’t nearly as transparent as his rotation counterpart is. The left-hander, who has significantly better velocity than Garcia, typically throws a fastball on the first pitch and early in the count but is quick to abandon the hard stuff in favor of his changeup (particularly with two strikes), which gets plenty of hitters to chase. Look for the Twins to attempt to get at him early in the count when he is still throwing fastballs. 

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Cooling down Valencia's hot bat

Danny Valencia has apparently taken full advantage of the resources around him, getting batting tips from Justin Morneau and has opened his ears to the wonders of plate discipline from Jim Thome. This tutelage has paid dividends in just his second month of his career. Like baseball’s version of King Midas, everything he swung at in July turn to gold. He recorded a hit in all but two of the 16 games he played in, finishing the month hitting .453 (24-for-53) with seven extra base hits including a grand slam off of Zack Greinke.

However, maintaining that level of output has been difficult for Valencia as of late. Since his hitting extravaganza in Baltimore and Kansas City, Valencia has slowly come back down to earth, going 6-for-31 (.194) with eight strikeouts. The reason behind this drop-off is due to opposition’s ability to target his weaknesses and avoiding his hot zones.

In his limited time at the major league level, Valencia has demonstrated some outstanding plate coverage. Whereas many unrefined hitters attempt to yank that outer-half pitch, Valencia has made solid contact, amassing a .147 well-hit average on balls away (versus the .095 league average), frequently lacing fastballs on the outer half of the zone back through the middle of the field with vigor. Likewise, he has been equally impressive on pitches up in the zone, an area notorious for inciting vacant swings and lackadaisical pop outs, and has been able to get a sizeable portion of the barrel on the ball. Valencia has produced a .204 well-hit average on pitches up (versus the .103 league average) driving many of those pitches into center field for hits.

 

Because of his ability to handle those pitches well, opponents are now targeting other areas of the strike zone. Using the Hit Zone chart from Inside Edge, we can see that Valencia has shown only two real soft-spots in his swing so far: middle-up and middle-in. 

Danny Valencia's Hit Zones

  

While Orioles and Royals pitchers may have had the intentions hitting those cold spots, they routinely missed out over the plate for six straight games and Valencia revealed that he is talented enough to take advantage of those mistakes. Meanwhile, in this most recent series, the Rays pitching staff attacked those weaknesses and exploited his chase zones with total disregard for human life.

 

Tampa’s Wade Davis was virtually systematic in his approach, pounding the fastball at that middle-in locale then dropped the slider on him in his chase zones. In his first match-up, Davis buzzed a fastball in his middle-in cold zone for strike one then proceeded to throw two straight sliders in his chase zone to dispatch him in three pitches. During their fourth inning battle, Davis again started him with a fastball, this time in his outer-half chase zone (which Valencia wisely laid off) then came inside twice with the heat to induce a fly out to left. In their third and final encounter, Davis showed him a slider for a strike then burned a fastball in his elevated cold zone, getting Valencia to fly out to right.

 

Tampa Bay showed that they are an astute team that is capable of not only being aware of Valencia’s weaknesses but also have the talent to execute. This description is not too far off from how James Niemann handled him as well on Tuesday night. Ditto for rookie Jeremy Hellickson on Monday too.

 

When advanced scouts start to see something that a hitter will crush, like Valencia and fastballs, they will report back to the club quickly. Not surprising, the amount of fastballs thrown to him went from 67.4% in June to just 49.0% in July. If they start to see a tendency or a pattern, like Valencia’s middle-in soft spot or likelihood to chase, they’ll report that too. Word spreads quickly in baseball.

 

With this detailed map of how to get him out waiting for him in Cleveland and Chicago, Valencia’s next lesson in his on-going development will be to learn how to adapt to the ever-changing competition.

OtB Twins Notes

With the non-waiver trade deadline coming to a close on Saturday, the Twins proceeded into August having made only one maneuver, trading for Nationals closer Matt Capps to fortify a bullpen that had been taxed in July. While the Twins were looking for starting pitcher, discussing left-hander Ted Lilly with the Cubs, they ultimately backed down as Chicago was seeking players that the Twins were unwilling to give up. Although Lilly has pitched much better than his depressing 3-8 record would indicate, as a fly-ball oriented pitcher, his addition to the rotation would not have played to Twins’ defensive strengths. Another target that would have plausibly fit better into the Twins’ defensive asset would have been Houston’s Brett Myers. Myers, who has continually thrown six or more innings in each start, has been impressive so far this season, throwing his slider more frequently to induce more groundballs. Word from the Twins front office in the early part of the week was that they were not considering Myers a trade candidate at all (perhaps because of personal makeup) but changed direction at the trade deadline and attempted to see what it would take to get him relayed Joe Christenson. However, the Astros apparently valued Myers immensely as on Sunday Houston extended Myers through 2013.

One of the most obvious reasons Capps was sought out over Toronto’s Scott Downs or Jason Frasor or other late inning relief candidates is Capps ability to consistently pound the strike zone. The Twins’ demand of command not only out of their starters but out of their bullpen as well. The team’s relief arms have issued the fewest walks in baseball (81) and have the lowest BB/9 in the American League (2.57). To his credit, Capp’s current total (9) is tied for sixth while his BB/9 (1.57) is the tenth lowest in baseball making his style a very good fit for the organization’s philosophy.

Fox Sports writer/reporter/shorter than Adam Wainwright Ken Rosenthal believes that the Twins may be a potential team to pursue Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell. While this may have seemed plausible in June, the times have changed for the Twins and the need for someone like Lowell as dissipated. In addition to injuries and drop off in production outside of Fenway, there is another big reason the Twins should not have that much interest in Lowell: Since July 1^st, Danny Valencia has now gone 28-for-59 (.474) with 13 runs batted in. Only twice in the month of July did he fail to record a hit in a game. With his right-handed stick in the lineup, the Twins now have three right-handed forces (Valencia, Delmon Young and Michael Cuddyer) to subdue left-handed pitching.

While his defense comes into question, Denard Span has slowly improved his numbers since the beginning of the season. According to John Dewan’s Plus/Minus system, Span is now the fourth-best defensive center fielder in the American League (+8). This certainly helps lift the Twins from the position of having the worst outfield in baseball. The Twins’ outfielders have managed to track down just 133 balls out of zone, the third-worst in the American League, which helps explain why the pitching staff is the owner of a .167 BABIP on fly balls, 20 points higher than the AL average of .142.

Since the All Star Break, Francisco Liriano has thrown 21 innings, racking up a 3-0 record with a solid 25/6 K/BB ratio and has yet to relinquished a run. Yes, this sort of output should have been expected.

Speaking of Liriano, him and Carl Pavano’s 42% of off-speed pitches chases out of the zone lead the American League in that category (average 30%). They have filthy stuff.

For the season, Delmon Young has a .376 batting average on fastballs, the third best in baseball. Not surprising, coinciding with his murder-death-kill of American League pitching, his amount of heaters has decreased dramatically. In June, 56.1% of his pitches seen were of the fastball variety. In July, a month in which Young hit a massive.434/.455/.736, he was thrown fastballs just 39.9% of the time - by far the least frequent in baseball. This is just another sign that Young has been adjusting with the pitchers that have tried to adjust to him.

If you have $2.99 million lying around (like most people), you can purchase Brad Radke’s Greenwood, MN home on Lake Minnetonka. If you do happen to buy the house, the real estate company would like you to know that the house usually settles in during the third inning.

Twins spend best trading chip on closer Capps

By his own admission, Twins general manager Bill Smith seemed to grasp the absurdity of overpaying at the trade deadline. “There is a fine line between patience and impatience or patience and panic,” He told MLB.com’s Kelly Thesier, “You don’t want to overreact either way.”  

Nevertheless, Smith ignored this philosophy by shipping his number one trading chip in Wilson Ramos to Washington for closer in Matt Capps. It’s basically like encouraging everyone at a party to behave like responsible adults then jump in to the pool with a lampshade on your head.

With the notion of patience and overreacting at the forefront of their minds, coupled with the market shaping up to favor sellers, Smith and company made a snap decision and relinquished their best trading chip to address one of their looming needs.

In his first two games in Minnesota, Wilson Ramos gave fans a glimpse of his promise, going 7-for-9 with three doubles. This perfromance probably obscured some onlooker’s perspective of his immediate talent. He regressed quickly of course, and went 1-for-18 with three strikeouts in the rest of his tenure at the big league level. On top of that, Ramos’s trade value also took a hit when he stopped getting them in AAA, failed to show power or patience at the higher level and was a repeat-offender when it came to injuries. At the same time, let’s not forget that the 22-year-old Ramos has only had slightly more than 500 plate appearances above the high-A level. At this point in his development, the catching prospect has not had ample time to adapt properly at each level lending credence to the notion that the best is yet to come.

In exchange for Ramos and his high-ceiling, the Twins fortified their bullpen with another version of Jon Rauch.

Admittedly, Capps has much better raw stuff than Rauch. His fastball has three-to-four more miles per hour behind it and can actually miss bats. Whereas Rauch’s heater gets a below average 12% miss rate, Capps’s cheddar gets hitters to miss 20% of the time. Even with that arsenal, he’s still has posted similar results.

In the past three seasons, Capps’s 1.8 BB/9 is lower than all relievers with the exception of Edward Mujica and Mariano Rivera. In his 178.2 innings pitched in that span, Capps had issued just 36 free passes. While his walk rate is unquestionably spectacular - which keeps the bases free of clutter in the late innings - Capps has been dinged for hits at a high clip. In that same timeframe, Capps’s .276 batting average allowed has been the ninth-highest among relievers in baseball and he has allowed 23 home runs to boot. Like Capps, Jon Rauch has managed to keep his walk rate at a respectable level (2.2 BB/9) while turning in a somewhat sub-prime batting average (.261). Not to be outdone by his National League counterpart, Rauch also surrendered a matching 23 home runs in the last three seasons.

On top of this redundancy, there is also a buyer-beware element to the Capps acquisition as well. In his younger days in Pittsburgh, toiling away at the league’s worst bullpen, Capps was massively overexerted, making 161 appearances from 2006 to 2007.  With that sort of mileage, it is no wonder that Capps eventually landed on the DL with shoulder bursitis and elbow swelling.  Although he has not had any bouts with injuries since 2009, the concern exists that something could go awry with the wiring at any point.

Was sacrificing their best available blue-chip trading prospect for essentially a carbon copy of their in-house closer a sage decision?   

Again, as Mr. Smith says, there is fine line between patience and panic. A year ago, the Twins waited until late August when they landed Rauch in exchange for a prospect-turned-suspect in Kevin Mulvey. That inexpensive maneuver supplied the Twins will their now-ousted closer for much of 2010. This year the team moved quickly and decisively at a significant cost. It remains to be seen how the aggressive approach plays out.  

Twins turning to Toronto for help?

1500ESPN’s Tom Pelissero relayed yesterday afternoon that the Twins were in contact with the Toronto Blue Jays, possibly seeking bullpen help. This report would corroborate the speculation of Star Tribune beat writer La Velle Neal who noted that the Twins would be interested in adding another bullpen arm. After scoring runs by the dozens in Baltimore and Kansas City, it seems highly unnecessary to require bullpen help. After all, the team is posting an American League-best 3.17 ERA so far this season. 

Of course, this is potential a case of smoke-and-mirrors as the team also has a 4.41 xFIP out of the bullpen. Additionally, in July, the Twins second-city players have accumulated a gaudy 4.55 ERA – possibly indicative of tired arms that have been overused while starters have called it quits early in the game. If the Twins expect to dash to the finish line with the White Sox in the Central, reinforcements are needed. 

KSTP’s Joe Schmit tweeted that the Twins were not in contention for the 34-year-old left-hander, Scott Downs. Of Toronto’s stable of relievers, Downs may be the most desirable of the lot, especially if his $4 million price tag for 2010 says anything about it. While the majority of long-term contracts to relievers wind up not worth the paper they are signed on, Downs has fulfilled expectations. After signing a three-year, $10 million contract in 2008, he has emerged as one of the game’s most consistent bullpen arms. In the past three seasons, Downs’s 3.44 xFIP has been the 12^th-best among the game’s relievers. Meanwhile, for those that prefer ERA, Downs has been the fourth best in that category (2.28) as well. What makes him particularly attractive for the later innings is his restrictive home run nature. During the course of his current contract, Downs’s 0.46 home runs per nine innings in the seventh-lowest among those qualified relievers. As a pitcher who rarely breaks 90-mph with his fastball, Downs earns his living hitting the areas just below the strike zone. This has made him a very effective groundball-oriented pitcher (59% GB since ’08) and very difficult to elevate with power.

With Jesse Crain rebounding to form and Matt Guerrier producing well in later innings, it seems unlikely that the Twins require a right-handed reliever but the Blue Jays have several of those options available too. One-time closer Jason Frasor is one such target. In three consecutive years, Frasor has struck out roughly 20% of his total batters faced while incorporating a split-finger fastball to increase the total amount of groundballs induced in recent years. However, Frasor’s ERA (4.66) has outpaced the anticipated results due to a precipitous amount of balls finding turf. For his career, Frasor holds a .296 BABIP but is carrying a hefty .376 BABIP this season, which is one of the highest in baseball despite having significant groundball tendencies. With the exception of the walks, Frasor has a skill set that could play well in Minnesota as, like Downs, he is miserly with the home runs and is a groundball pitcher. Aside from the walks, the Twins typically do not acquire split-finger pitchers so those two elements would probably He’s nominally cheaper than Downs (slated to make $2.65 million in ’10) and a free agent for the first time in his career after this season.

Like Frasor, Shawn Camp is another right-handed reliever with late-inning pedigree and high leverage experience. Unlike the previous two candidates, Camp is not known for his ability to entice a strikeout. Camp relies on command of his pitches but can get plenty of off-balanced swings with his changeup and slider combination. Likewise, this repertoire gets him plenty of grounders as well (55% career rate). Camp is favorable of a matchup against right-handers (a career 3.25 K/BB ratio) lefties have proven to be a tougher puzzle for him. For his career, left-handers had hit .328/.389/.515. His presence may require some managerial savvy as the amount of available left-handers out of the pen is now limited to Jose Mijares and Ron Mahay. Still, his $1.15 million contract makes him an attractive acquisition and without the Type A label of Scott Downs, Camp would require a much smaller package to obtain.

Lastly, reigning Blue Jays’ closer, Kevin Gregg, was signed after a hellacious season in Chicago’s Wrigley Field combating the prevailing winds. While in a Cubs uniform, Gregg surrendered a career-high 13 home runs and was constantly influx with his closer’s position. Toronto signed him on the cheap ($2.75 with option in ’11 and ’12) in February. Gregg started his season in Canada well, converting 14 of 16 save opportunities while limited opponents to a .250 batting average and 27 strikeouts in 23 innings pitched. From June on, his control waned some (mostly attributed to a five-walk outing against Tampa) leading to a 5.12 walks per nine innings and he blew another two saves in 11 tries as his ERA inflated to 4.70. He’s increased the usage of his cutter, leading to more grounder, yet his ability to hit the strike zone is of concern.

With a relief staff full of arms ready for the trade, Toronto has four viable options that could be had at a relatively low price. Here’s an excerpt from the Blue Jays’ section of the 2010 TwinsCentric Trade Deadline Primer written by Jays' blogger Will Rainey: 

“Just as unexpectedly, it has been bullpen inconsistency that has undermined the team's pitching efforts. Coming into the season, it was widely assumed that the Jays, who'd had the best bullpen in the game over the previous three seasons combined, had not only a solid crew but depth from which to trade as the deadline approached. While it's still true they have movable parts, those players have not spent the first half burnishing their trade value. It is true that reliever's ERA can be one of the most misleading of stats, since one or two rough outings can skew the overall figure badly, but one can't help noticing that several of the Jays relievers have had those blowups. Most frustratingly, these seem to occur most often against the division rival Rays.” 

Because they are undervalued right now, the Twins may be able to land any of the four at a reasonable price and help distribute the workload around more in the later innings.