Can Alexi Casilla sustain this pace?

It has been quite a turnaround for Alexi Casilla.

The often lamented infielder had just 19% of his balls in play become hits in April – which resulted in a pathetic .167/.227/.200 triple-slash – only to break loose offensively since the beginning of May to have 37% of his balls in play turn into hits and posting a .317/.394/.439 slash in that duration. This outburst has put Casilla’s numbers on the brink of becoming better than average for an average middle infielder.

Now, statistically-inclined thinkers may ultimately question the sample size of the 95 plate appearances heading into Sunday’s game and caution everyone that Casilla’s newfound good fortune on balls in play is likely to revert back towards his career norm of 28%. What’s more is that even during this hot streak since May 1, he’s still hitting the ball on the ground over 60% of the time with even fewer recorded line drives. The laws of batted ball nature suggest that those should start finding infield leather. Plus, using his more recent track record, such as his .232/.300/.313 batting line from 2009 and 2010, no one would expect Casilla to continue this success, right? Right?

Well, I do, at least to some degree.

Certainly Casilla’s history inspires little confidence. As mentioned above, he’s a worm-burner of hitter and is also fairly weak from the right-side. At the same time, he has a very discriminating at the plate, rarely expands the zone for pitchers and exercises a high rate of contact. All he needed was to make better contact – which he is doing at this point – and there are some indications that he could keep that up.   

Last week, 1500ESPN’s Phil Mackey caught up with Casilla and the streaking infielder told him that he and hitting coach Joe Vavra had made some changes in the cage to his mechanics that he has taken on to the field with him. According to Casilla:

"I was one day in the cage, hitting against the machine, and my stance was kind of tall…I went a little bit lower, and I was hitting the ball very good. I said, 'I should bring this to the game now.' So I feel a lot better."

Digging through the video archives, I found no real confirmation that he was getting “lower” in his stance but what did standout was the fact that Casilla has resurrected a leg-kick/weight transfer that he had implemented during his 2008 season.

Because the majority of the switch-hitting Casilla’s success and his plate appearances have come from the left-side of the plate, I focused more of my attention to those at-bats. Here are shots of Casilla’s pre-May swing:

In all three cases (all against Tampa), we see Casilla stepping towards home plate, only to stop his momentum, then restart his swing when the ball is close. In general, this method is good for high-contact and bat control but in terms of being able to drive the ball, it diminishes the contributions of the lower-half of a hitter’s body. This approach is very similar to that of Denard Span’s swing. Why has this worked better for Span than it has Casilla? To speculate, Span has quicker wrists, with a shorter, more compact swing and therefore has provided better results.

These are the same mechanics that Casilla used in 2009 and 2010. Here you see Casilla in Cleveland in 2010 (a decent year for him statistically) using the same mechanics:

Compare those to the following two shots from post-May 1:

Here you see that the front leg step and the weight transfer are fluid and in unison. Casilla is able to engage his lower-half much better. Because of that, despite putting plenty of balls on the ground, we see the ball jump off his bat much better than it had at the beginning of the season. So, while grounders still become outs at high percentage of the time, putting them into play at a greater velocity is bound to turn into hitters more frequently than those  of the slow bouncer variety (someday, Hit F/X will confirm this for me).

As I said before, this approach is reminiscent of Casilla’s mechanics in 2008, the year in which many believed he had broken through the team’s solution at second base by hitting .281/.333/.374 with 9 home runs. Here you see that very swing which is almost identical to his current model:

Like the examples from post-May 1, Casilla is using his lower-half more in his mechanics, able to generate some power (as evident by his 9 home runs that season). What is also interesting is that while Casilla swing from 2009-2011 have a propensity to have better contact, his career-best contact rate came in 2008 when he had this approach.

It is easy to remain skeptical on whether this alteration will led to sustainable production out of Casilla. Even making the changes that he has, it is near impossible for him to continue to hit safely on almost 40% of balls put into play. At some point, because Casilla has been receiving a very high portion of fastballs, opponents may alter their game plan – throwing more off-speed and breaking balls - in order to disrupt Casilla’s new approach. Or perhaps managers will decide to start using their left-handed relievers at Casilla’s spot in the lineup (which is now second) in order to turn him around and neutralize him by putting him to his inferior side.

That’s what baseball is. It is a series of adaptations from both sides. Hitters with consistent, solid mechanics and a keen understanding of the strike zone ultimately wind up sustaining their success over the course of a season. Right now, that description fits for Casilla. Had Casilla’s sudden streak come without the assistance of a change in his mechanics, I’d be more inclined to think that he would regress hard and soon. However realizing that there are some tangible, physical evidence driving this improvement I’m less prone to believe that he will experience that much of a downturn in the near future. 

Behind Delmon's mechanical malfunction

When Justin Morneau was sidelined with his season-ending concussion, the 2010 Twins could have been on the brink of folding.  With their leading hitter gone from the lineup, they could have easily slunk into the middle of the pack of the AL Central. Fortunately, players like Delmon Young were there to step up in his absence.

This season, with the world crumbing around them, Young wilted like the rest of the offense.

The expectations for Young heading into 2011 were lofty considering what was interpreted as his breakout season. However, instead of taking another step forward, Young regressed heavily at the plate. Prior to Thursday night’s game his .504 OPS is the second-lowest among outfielders with a minimum of 120 plate appearances. Clearly something is not right.

Fox Sports North analyst Roy Smalley believes he knows exactly where Young has gone astray. Recently Smalley told columnist Jim Souhan that:

“Young has too much weight on his front foot, leaving him to hit with only his hands, like a hacker with a reverse-pivot golf swing.”

Smalley might be the best person to offer an assessment of Young’s problems. After all, night in and night out at Target Field Smalley has the perfect vantage point of Young’s swing from the first base camera well. Let’s take a look at a pair of clips from Smalley’s angle:

If you look at his 2010 swing (the above clip from a home run Young hit against the Blue Jays in the Rogers Centre) you see very succinct mechanics from his upper body and his lower half. He loads his hands slightly but brings them forward extremely quick through the hitting zone and in sync with his hip rotation.

In contrast to that sweet swing, his 2011 swing (the below clip from his lone home run of the 2011 season in Arizona) you see a timing differential between his hip rotation and his hands. The back hip start turning and then you see his hands follow. Part of this is due to the fact that you can see him drop his bat slightly before bringing it forward, leading to a longer loop in his swing and giving him drag in his mechanics.

The effect that this has is that it (A) decreases his power and (B) significantly slows his bat speed down.

The decrease in power is pretty evident when you peruse his statistics. Across the board, his power numbers (slugging, isolated power, etc) have declined sharply. Meanwhile, the signs of a slower bat are apparent when you consider his struggles against fastballs this year. Last year, according to Inside Edge’s data, Young held a .334 well-hit average against fastballs. Before that he had a .324 well-hit average in ’09 and a .302 well-hit average in ’08. This season his well-hit average on fastballs has fallen to a paltry .217.

What’s more is that Young continually seems late on fastballs. His batted ball spray chart on fastballs confirms this notion that he is not able to drive the hard stuff up the middle or to left field as well as he did in 2010:

Attempting to identify the root cause is nothing but pure speculation from here on out but the issue could possibly be attributed to his oblique injury that sidelined him for a spell  or it could be the results of his off-season efforts to pull the ball more and bulk up on his upper body. As LaVelle Neal wrote during spring training:

“Looks like Young has decided to pull the ball more this year. He's stronger from the waist up and look[s] very confident after a good season in 2010. He's a little bit of a Albert Belle look to him this year. That means baseballs could be in trouble.”

Rather than using the well-timed mechanics he had in 2011 he may be trying to muscle the ball more and, as Smalley pointed out, has disengaged from his lower-half.

Young has taken plenty of flak for his mechanics in the past yet he is rumored to be pretty reluctant to talk about them. A year ago, Souhan spoke with Ron Gardenhire during Young’s hot streak. Naturally the columnist asked the manager if there were any adjustments that Young made to account for this power stroke. Gardenhire replied:

"I think it was his approach. You have to make adjustments in your approach sometimes. There were a few mechanical things he's had to work on. He'll tell you, 'No,' but we all know different."

As Nick Nelson stated recently at TwinsCentric, Young’s act may be wearing thin with the club. Meanwhile, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reported that some baseball executives think that Young is very likely on the trade block.  But in order for the Twins to get anything in return Young needs to turn things around. The question is how do you fix a guy that doesn’t think he is doing anything wrong?

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Reminder: Tonight the TwinsCentric group and FSN/KFAN’s Lindsey Guentzal are hosting a Twins Viewing Party at Smalley’s 87 Club. Festivities will start before the 7 PM game including food/drink specials and prizes (Twins tickets, DiamondCentric shirts, etc). The event will support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Minnesota so please come out, have a few beers and know you are contributing to a good cause.  

Also, Game Six shirts have been printed and are now available at DiamondCentric for $17 through the weekend. Get yours today!

Twins send Liriano to the DL

Following what has become a common sight – the Twins bullpen blowing a 5-run lead against the Angels on Friday night - the Twins issued a statement saying that Francisco Liriano would be skipped in what would have been his normally scheduled start on Saturday due to a sore shoulder.

Before Monday’s game Joe Christensen relayed some grim information regarding Liriano’s progress saying:

“Liriano said his left shoulder did not feel well when he played catch before [Monday]'s game against the Tigers, so he will likely miss one more start, at least…Toward the end of batting practice today, Liriano was shagging balls in center field and having teammates throw the balls back toward the infield for him.”

So, after showing some improvement in his more recent starts against Seattle and Arizona, Liriano exits May on the 15-day disabled list. The underlying tone of this move is that it should not signify anything more than a need to give Liriano the required rest and provide Gardenhire with another option out in the ‘pen. Rather than move forward with an already depleted bullpen since Anthony Swarzak has been tapped to fill Liriano’s void for the time being, the Twins summoned reliever Anthony Slama from Rochester to take Swarzak’s place. The Liriano transaction is retroactive to May 23 so he could be ready to start again on June 6, essentially bypassing his second consecutive start. He needed another start skipped and the Twins needed an arm. Simple as that.

Of course, while I say it shouldn’t signify much of anything, there is plenty of evidence to make people wonder if there is something more substantial happening with Liriano’s arm.

Liriano entered the season not in condition to withstand the rigors of spring training. He matched that by being unable to neither work ahead of hitters nor locate the strike zone on a regular basis with his fastball when the regular season started.  As I outlined at the end of April, there were some indications that he was releasing the ball differently than his previous season which may have had some big influential factors on his overall command. On top of that, he showed some decay in his velocity as well. Given those factors, it wasn’t too hard to fathom some eventual visit to the disabled list for Liriano.

Back in February, when the Twins made it clear they were not going to pursue a long-term contract with Liriano, I was one of a handful of Twins bloggers that sided with the club on their decision. To be sure, the stance went against the grain of all that I had upheld as a statistically-oriented and data-driven individual, especially given the fact that the team would have been able to get a team-friendly deal at that point, but my research and video scouting led me to the same conclusion that the Twins reached.

One of the biggest aspects of my findings that stood out to me in terms of Liriano was this section:

“There is an on-going debate on whether or not throwing sliders takes a bigger toll on a pitcher’s arm versus the other assortment of pitches. One study conducted by Dr. James Andrews and Dr Glenn Fleisig (among others) found that there was no conclusive evidence that showed that a slider was any more or less damaging to a pitcher’s arm than a fastball, but they conceded that the small sample size gave no real insight to whether or not this is true. What they did find is that slider tends to have greater “shoulder proximal force than curveballs”. This is noteworthy because if a pitcher demonstrates improper timing in their mechanics and increases their shoulder proximal force, according to Andrews’s book “The Athlete’s Shoulder”, additional pressure is put on the bicep tendon-complex which increasingly leads to a SLAP lesion.”

So here we are two months into the season and Liriano who, time and again, has been accused of funky mechanics is now sidelined with a sore shoulder. Fortunately, the Twins did perform an MRI which did not reveal any SLAP lesions. Their analysis came back showing just slight inflammation with signs of tendinitis. Now it is completely possible that this is a blip on the radar - which he has general soreness and developed some tendinitis and the rest will heal him – but even tendinitis, which is common, has a funny way of lingering and disrupting performances. For instance, Glen Perkins had been diagnosed with tendinitis in July of 2009 and – despite coming back in 2010 - he never really recovered his stuff until the 2011 season.

With their position in the division, the Twins may have wanted Liriano to string together a few more starts like the ones in Seattle or Arizona in order to increase his trade value by the deadline. This injury combined with his lackluster performance could dampers those plans.  Certainly the hope is that with the rest and some anti-inflammatory treatment he’ll be ready in a week’s time, however, given the red flags throughout this season, there is a part of me that wouldn’t be surprised if Liriano’s injury does not wind up more extensive time on the DL before the year's end.

Adjustment in approach may have sunk Capps

As Kelly Johnson’s grand slam sank deep into the right field bleachers and into the outstretched arms of the ecstatic Diamondback fans on Saturday night, you could see Matt Capps’s shoulders slump just a bit.

It was his second blown save in the past four attempts. It was his fourth home run of the season – three more than he allowed in a Twins uniform all last year.  

I’m one of those sick individuals that likes to rewind those cataclysmic events and re-watch them in slow-motion several times. While reviewing the Johnson grand slam, Capps’s location on the rubber before the pitch jumped out at me: Capps was set-up on the far left side.

 (Courtesy of MLBAM)

It struck me as odd because I had thought Capps was a straight-up type of pitcher, one who uses the middle of the rubber and chucks strikes. After all, that was what the Twins said they loved about him, that he rears back and throws strikes. Yet, after checking the available footage, I found that Capps was indeed working on the extreme left-side of the rubber when facing lefties so far this year.

Comparing that to the previous season, this was definitely a newly developed approach. As an example, here is a shot of him shortly after the Twins acquired him from Washington facing the left-handed hitting Jordan Brown of the Indians:

As you can see Capps is straight-up, almost dead-center of the pitching rubber.

Capps’s shift at Chase Field was not just a one batter or one ballpark change, either. Pitch F/X charts found at Fangraphs.com shows that Capps has made some wholesale adjustments to the way he approaches hitters. In general, for most of his career, Capps was indeed a straightforward pitcher, beginning near the center of the rubber against both lefties and righties alike. This slowly began to change in September of last year.

For those unfamiliar with pitch f/x charts, look at this chart as if you are the catcher and Capps is throwing at you. Those dots represent approximately four feet away from where the ball left his hand. In 2010 we see one consistent release point area:

For the vast majority of the season Capps maintains a similar release point but then, for whatever reason (coaching, comfort, experimenting, etc), he began to set-up on the first base side of the rubber when facing lefties.

Meanwhile this season his release split is much more pronounced and, in addition to going to the far ends of the rubber against lefties, he is also shifting more towards third when a right-hander is at the plate:

It is strange that Capps implemented this. Although I noted above it could have been coaching related, just last month pitching coach Rick Anderson told La Velle E Neal that the team was trying to convince Francisco Liriano to quit his movement:

Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson feels staying at one spot on the mound - which most pitchers do - will help Liriano settle down. Andy feels Liriano gets so wound up over strikeouts [then] throws too many sliders and doesn’t execute like he can.

``Pitching is consistency,'' Anderson said. ``Let's go to being consistent, where you are on the rubber and see if we can be consistent where you are at throughout the game.''

It makes little sense to me that Anderson would wean Liriano off of it while encouraging Capps to adopt it.  

While this lateral movement may have helped him against his same-sided foes (574 OPS in ’11 versus a 719 OPS in ’10) it seems to have hurt his performance against left-handed hitters. After limiting lefties to a 645 OPS with two home runs in 146 plate appearances, southpaws have a 784 OPS with three home runs in just 44 plate appearances.  

The overall small-sample universe that a closer works in can have a lot to do with the fluctuation of their numbers but Capps’s rough patch against lefties may have to do with this very mound modification. Below is a pitch f/x graph showing the movement of his two-seam fastball to lefties. In the top one from 2010, Capps was painting more of the outer-half of the strike zone. This season, from his new release point, Capps is cutting the plate in half on average.

In the instance of Kelly Johnson, seen below, not to mention Luke Scott and Johnny Damon, all of Capps’s long balls came in the form of two-seam fastballs that caught too much of the plate.

Last year Capps had a terrific season after coming to Minnesota. In his short stint with the Twins, he racked up 16 saves in 18 opportunities and posted a very good 2.00 ERA in 27 innings of work. In that time, he allowed just one home run while getting hitters to swing at a large swath of pitches out of the strike zone (38.4%) and coaxed a high percentage of groundballs off of his opponents’ bats (53% GB%). This year hitters have laid off most of his out-of-zone offerings (28%) while elevating far more of his pitches (29% GB%). I would surmise that this tremendous decline in worm-burners has to do with leaving too many pitches out over the plate rather than on the edges where hitters would turn them over.

With a bullpen in disrepair as it is, the Twins need Capps to shutdown teams in situations just like he was asked to on Saturday night. Unquestionably, Capps is a strike-throwing closer without the swing-and-miss stuff of vintage Joe Nathan. At the same time, he’s also very adept at retiring hitters for long stretches of time, as he showed last year. The trick for Capps is avoiding the meaty part of the plate.

Twins have nowhere to go but up

It is a downright shame that the Rapture has to take place within the midst of the Twins’ best stretch of baseball thus far in the 2011 season.  It is particularly more disappointing considering the recent strides some key players have made over the past couple of weeks.

For starters, suddenly the rotation doesn’t look like such a boondoggle.

Francisco Liriano discontinued his usage of the two-seam fastball and went back to what worked for him in 2010 – the four-seamer, change-up and slider trinity. Equally important to his improvement was his ability to pepper the strike zone early in the count and work ahead of his opponents. The results in his most recent start -- albeit against the woeful Mariners lineup -- suggest that this is the approach would put him back on track as the dominating pitcher from a year ago.  

Coming off now four straight quality starts, Nick Blackburn, as he demonstrated in yesterday’s game, has diversified his pitches more. This has been keeping opponents off-balanced and getting them to beat the ball in to the ground. A year ago, Blackburn fell into the pattern of using his two-seamer far too frequently and hitters jumped all over that. Over the winter, Russell Branyan, who faced Blackburn while in an Indians uniform, told him that hitters picked up on that fact quickly. This year, with his elbow repaired, Blackburn has started off hitters with a fastball far less often than he did last year (46% in ’11 versus 55% in ’10) which has helped him to a team-best in ERA (3.40) and xFIP (4.08).

In the bullpen, Joe Nathan has also looks like he has turned a corner in his recovery. At the beginning of the season, Nathan was a facsimile of his former self – unable to neither generate velocity nor dispatch his deadly slider. As such, few opponents chased after anything not thrown in the zone and punished anything that dared fly into their wheelhouse. He finished the season’s initial month with a 10.00 ERA, allowing 11 runs in nine innings of work while posting a 7-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio. This month, with a heavier reliance on his curve and improvement in the velocity department, Nathan has gotten hitters to chase more pitches out of the zone and missed more bats. The end result in May has been significantly better: a 1.80 ERA with just one run allowed in his last five outings.

Meanwhile, on the offensive side of the baseball, the Twins have seen some players begin to emerge from their early season doldrums as well.

Having been discussed repetitively during each one of his at-bats during the FSN broadcasts for the past few weeks, Justin Morneau’s mechanical problems did not hamper him in Oakland.  With his second home run of the season and adding a double for good measure, Morneau appeared to be keeping his weight back more with his front side locked in rather than pulling away from the plate.  Admittedly, the A’s did not follow suit as previous teams did by pitching Morneau away, instead leaving some offerings over the plate. To his credit, the first baseman capitalized on those mistakes and that is perhaps a sign that the slugger is poised to contribute more regularly.

After a brutal month of April, Michael Cuddyer has accumulated base hits by the bushel in May. Following a 3-for-4 day at the plate yesterday, he’s now hitting .333 this month and has resurrected his overall average back up to .267 after entering May hitting .226. Admittedly, he still lacks the power that he had shown two seasons ago, but getting on-base and avoiding outs is a big step forward.

Likewise, Trevor Plouffe has been a refreshing oasis in the desert of disappointing offensive shortstops, giving the Twins someone with a stick to hit in the second spot in the order. Although defensively Plouffe needs some work – often taking ill-advised routes to groundballs, bobbling others and throwing away every third chance – he has come through with some very clutch hits as of late. Though the defense may need work, management will grit their teeth and suffer through it in order to have someone who can wield some lumber.

If these and other players around them continue to make progress and sustain production, though it would take a near miracle, the opportunity exists to chip away at the deficit the team created in April and potentially re-enter the division race. Considering the Twins have played the fewest amount of games at home in the American League (15) and have a large portion of contests remaining within the division, there is a chance for the team to climb the standings. And it could happen sooner rather than later. In addition to returning to Target Field on Monday for the week, the Twins have 10 consecutive games against AL Central opponents following that.

Could a big run now be enough to give the team with baseball’s worst record a shot at drawing closer to contention prior to the trade deadline?

It is unfortunate that the world has to end so soon without fans being able to receive an answer. Then again, maybe it is for the best that the apocalypse happens now rather than after the team heats up. After all, somewhere in the Bible it says the last shall be first and, at this point, the Twins have nowhere to go but up.