Did Cuddyer's knee diminish his power?

The Twins announced this week that a handful of players, including Michael Cuddyer, will have some offseason surgery to combat the lingering injuries. Reports Star Tribune’s La Velle E. Neal:

Twins first baseman Michael Cuddyer said he will need surgery to clean out his right knee, which has been bothering him since the beginning of the season. 

"I need my right knee scoped," Cuddyer said Monday. "I wasn't that affected by it as far as playing."

I am not so certain that last part is true.

Like most hard-nose players who ooze machismo all over the clubhouse, Cuddyer’s quote is an attempt at downplaying the injury and the potential it could have had on his overall game. If the knee was enough of an irritant to incite him to say it was bothering him all season, it probably had some influence over his playing. The announcement that the Twins mainstay would require surgery on his right knee might also help explain some of the diminished power and a damaging trend of hitting more grounders as the season progressed.

When Cuddyer amassed 32 bombs in ‘09, he did so in dramatic tape measure fashion. According to HitTrackerOnline.com, the right fielder averaged 412 feet per shot in true distance while the rest of the American League was averaging 396 feet on their home runs. While some of this distance might be attributed to hitting in the favorable atmospheric bubble of the Metrodome, Cuddyer also jacked 14 of his 32 home runs away from the climate-controlled park, an indication that he had effective power everywhere.

Given not just the total but the magnitude of the distance on his shots, expectations that Cuddyer could match his 2009 contributions seemed like a fair bet.

This year, however, not only did he hit 18 fewer home runs in 25 additional plate appearances between the two seasons, Cuddyer’s distance shrank considerable in those homers as well. His average true distance decreased to 396.4, just slightly better than the rest of the league (395.7). While Target Field’s conditions certainly may have been a factor in his decline in home runs at home as well as his diminished frequent flier mileage, his decrease in home runs on the road -- both in totals and distance -- suggest a more likely correlation with an injury. 

Then there is the case of his groundball totals increasing throughout the season. My initial diagnosis last month was that Cuddyer was rushing through his swing, often fooled by sliders and offspeed pitches and turning over on those by being out in front. While he was still rushing through is swing - more so than last year - with this revelation, it appears that there is a chance the injured knee may have been culprit rather than Cuddyer’s eagerness. With an injured right knee, the one that a right-handed hitter uses to drive off of, there may have been discomfort in his mechanics, which would cause the hitter to prematurely shift his balance off of his back leg sooner to alleviate the discomfort. 

Regardless of his statistical contributions are perceived, knowing that Cuddyer persevered and played through ailments such as his knee, just when the Twins needed him the most, seems to validate some aspect of his team MVP argument. No, he didn’t get many key hits, as his WPA was beyond the pale (-1.52), and he was utterly overmatched defensively at first base, acting as a sieve whenever a short hop was thrown in his direction. Still, Cuddyer was able to maintain some semblance of order by remaining in the lineup instead of having Jose Morales, Brendan Harris or the likes fill in at first. To some manager’s, that might be enough to consider your player a downright superstar.

Because the Twins are already on the hook for his rather overpriced $10.5 million in 2011, the organization needs to hope that the minor procedure of “cleaning up” his knee will help resurrect his power potential.

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As a reminder, when you are finished here, head over to TwinsCentric.com and purchase your pre-sale copy of the TwinsCentric Offseason Handbook 2010-2011. Heading into my Billy Mays mode, if you act now, you can buy the Handbook for $4.95 now instead of the $9.95 full-price that all of the Johnny-Come-Latelys will pay.

TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook 2010-2011

Because the baseball embers continue to burn throughout the dark and cold winter, that’s why we at TwinsCentric have compiled the well-received Offseason GM Handbook. As one front office official told me, the hot stove is when all the action happens. From every possible angle, John Bonnes, Nick Nelson, Seth Stohs and myself have created a comprehensive guide for baseball’s second season. 

Here are some of the topics we will tackle that is facing the organization right now:

(1) What will the Twins do with all of those impending free agents?

Carl Pavano, Jim Thome, Orlando Hudson, Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier, Brian Fuentes, Randy Flores. Which ones SHOULD the Twins attempt to retain and why.  (A1: Not Randy Flores. A2: Because.)

(2) What about those arbitration eligibles, how much will they ask for and what is a fair offer from the front office?

There is a plethora of players in line for raises, including Francisco Liriano and Delmon Young. Certainly, after their 2010 seasons both players are looking for a raise. What should the Twins offer them?

(3) What is the future of the payroll?

No one concerns themselves more over the finances of the club than John Bonnes and he once again provides us with an accurate budget to operate with. Understanding these confines and parameters provides perspective. For example, knowing the current contractual obligations allows us to recognize that signing Cliff Lee is a pipedream.

(4) What do the Twins need?

A right-handed bat might be on the top of the list, where might they find that? There will be a surplus of those types of bats entering free agency, will there a bargain like Jim Thome available who swings from the opposite side of the plate? How about a backup catcher that isn’t an obscene downgrade offensively in the event Joe Mauer misses several games on end? A power pitcher? A two-hitter? A second baseman?

(5) How is the organization looking below the surface?

Seth Stohs knows more about the farm system and he outlines the depth by position in the organization and will predict who will be the next Danny Valencia for the team.

(6) What does the free agent landscape look like?

Last year, there was an abundance of left-handed designated hitters and second basemen. Because of that, the Twins wound up getting Thome and Hudson at a TJ Maxx price. What does the market have an abundance of and can the Twins improve from that?

(7) Do the Twins have tradeable commodities that they should use to acquire other talent?

In 2009, the Twins shipped Carlos Gomez, a talented yet maligned outfielder, to Milwaukee for J.J. Hardy in hopes of solidifying the shortstop spot. This trade was able to happen because the team had numerous outfielders. With Delmon Young, Denard Span, Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel, it appears that the Twins might have the opportunity to move one for help in another area.

We address all of these topics and more, offering thousands words on the issues and keys to team building that you crave. The TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook 2010-2011 is now available for pre-sale orders. Those that get in early, will have the opportunity to purchase the eBook at the low $4.95 rate -- half the regular price. Grab one now and get ready to join one of the greatest conversations.

Tough call, even tougher road ahead

If you are a subscriber to the theory of momentum, the Carl Pavano-Lance Berkman encounter in the seventh inning was the most pivotal (and controversial) at bat of the game, shifting control back into the Yankees’ favor.

The Twins had just tied the score at two in the bottom of the previous inning on Orlando Hudson’s solo home run and, following Delmon Young’s triple, Minnesota appeared to have Andy Pettitte reeling. Unable to score Young from third, the Twins set out to keep the Yankees scoreless in the top of the seventh. With no outs and Jorge Posada on first with a lead-off walk, Pavano gave up a double to Berkman, which scored the catcher from first. According toFangraph.com’s Play Log, Berkman’s RBI double supplied the defending champions with their largest amount of WPA (wins probability added)of the night, helping put the Yankees in front for good.

Of course, that double may never have happened had a certain pitch been called a you-know-what.

In the match-up, Pavano positioned himself well, getting two-strikes on Berkman, who had already homered earlier in the evening. While working him away on the first three pitches, Pavano buzzed a fastball inside for what appeared to everybody and their mother to be strike three.

Everybody, that is, except home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.

From his position at second base, Hudson, who had tied the game in the bottom of the last inning, jumped up and down, demonstrating his dissatisfaction with the call. Joe Mauer held the pitch a split-second longer than usual. Pavano stared towards home, presumably asking what Wendelstedt had seen.

MLB.com’s Pitch F/X system, which tracks pitches with a series of cameras, confirms that the pitch had indeed crossed through the strike zone:

While the majority of viewers probably figured that Wendelstedt took that Pavano pitch to be the opportune time to blast out a tweet (“Awesome seats for #Yankees-#Twins game. Sneaky Petes afterwards! #MLBPlayoffsRox”), Wendelsted’s call was consistent with his other calls.

In the chart below, provided by BrooksBaseball.net, it shows Wendelstedt’s strike zone to left-handed batters through MLB.com’s pitch f/x system. The red marks are his called strikes while the green ones represent balls. Naturally, the strike zone’s height will change depending on the hitter however, the width obviously remains static. In this case, to left-handed hitters, Wendelstedt would expand the zone on the outer region while reducing the zone on the inner portion. While a half dozen calls inside were missed, both team’s pitchers benefitted from this auxiliary strike zone away:

In the end, Yahoo.com’s Jeff Passen counted 31 missed calls by the home plate umpire, but also noting that Pavano was often the recipient of strike calls that were actually out of the zone (like his first strike to Berkman in the offending at bat). Simply put, while the call was blown, you can’t complain about a botched call on one hand while being the beneficiary of some questionable strikes on the other.

Regardless of the umpire’s indiscretions, the Twins will head into Yankee Stadium hoping to survive the weekend and somehow bounce back from two games in the hole. That feat has been accomplished exactly four times since the eight-team playoff format was introduced in 1995. Seattle managed to win three straight against the Yankees in 1995 while the Red Sox knocked Cleveland out in 1999. The A's lost two series after being up by two games, losing to the Yankees in 2001 and the Red Sox in 2003. Unfortunately, unlike the Twins, who have to venture into the city that never sleeps on their road to recovery, three of the four teams made their comebacks when returning home for two games.  

OtB Twins Notes: More on Kubel, Yankees scouting report and more

The same day that I presented the TwinsCentric piece on Jason Kubel’s numbers decline and noted that a big factor was the influence of Target Field, Pat Borzi, writer for the New York Times and MinnPost.com, submitted a very interesting article regarding the overall power outage of the new ballpark.

Per Borzi’s article: 

“The Twins hoped the ball would carry better in the warmer months. But according to Paul Huttner, the chief meteorologist for Minnesota Public Radio, who writes the Updraft weather blog, the prevailing wind in June, July and August in Minnesota blows into the ballpark from right field toward third base. When the wind does blow out, Huttner said, it is a colder, heavier wind, and the sun-shading canopy atop the ballpark interferes with it.

Huttner said the Twins’ grounds crew also described to him an unusual wind pattern. The effect, he said, knocks down balls hit to center even if the wind appears to be blowing out.”

This explains why there is a large absence of home run balls from center to left-center field – wind patterns. The effect and dead zone, if you will, has even caused some players to modify their approach. Kubel was once such player: 

“Some Twins hitters acknowledged adjusting their approach to the ballpark… Right fielder Jason Kubel, primarily an alley-to-alley hitter, said he crept a few inches closer to the plate during one homestand to pull the ball more.

‘I hit three homers, but I didn’t get any other hits,” he said. “So I went back to normal.’”

Judging from the home run distribution, Kubel’s attempts at pulling the ball more would certainly result in a higher likelihood of hitting a home run but would have also, as a gap-to-gap type hitter, greatly diminish the size of his field in which to hit safely and probably have an adverse effect on his batting average. While remaining in his comfort zone may result in a reduction of home runs, Kubel’s other numbers (batting average, on-base percentage, etc) might improve.

Scouting report:

Derek Jeter is armed with a keen eye at the plate and a unique ability to adjust quickly. For the past two years, Jeter has taken numerous pitches the other way to right-field, hitting 22% of his batted balls that direction. Anything middle-up in the zone presents Jeter a very good opportunity  of going the other way, including inside-outing numerous pitches in on his hands. The key to retiring the Yankees shortstop is to keep the ball down in the zone - particularly down-and-away (.242 since 2009) or down-and-in (.222). Those areas get him to beat the ball into the ground, which he has done so a career-high 65.7% of the time this year. If he does pull the ball, it will be on the ground (88% grounders to left). If you get up on him by two-strikes, Jeter has the tendency to chase after pitches above the strike zone (43% chase rate up in zone). He has hit nearly .400 (.395) since '09 on left-handed fastballs so a mix of sliders and changeups will be necessary. 

Nick Swisher, the Yankees' number two hitter, will be facing the lefty Francisco Liriano from the right side of the plate tonight. While he brings more discipline to the plate from the right, Swisher's power is clearly fallible from this batter's box. While able to use the entire field from the left-side, he's almost a dead-pull when hitting right-handed so Delmon Young, Danny Valenica and J.J. Hardy will be busy tonight. For his part, Liriano needs to keep the ball down and away (.210 BA the past two years with a 22% chase tendency) while feeding him a steady diet of non-fastballs (sub-.200 hitter on curves, sliders and changeups). 

Pitching to Alex Rodriguez is not a fun job -- probably feels like working the ball-pickup at the driving range because no matter what you do, the ball is coming back at you hard. His batting average was down this year, mostly due to a large drop in his line drive rate (from 20% to 13% in '10), and his on-base percentage suffered as his patience wilted (15% BB% to 9% BB%). Nevertheless, A-Rod still can put a charge into the ball. Without much of a weakness, keeping pitches middle-in on his hands keeps the large third baseman from extending his arms (where he's hitting just .268) and then go over the strike zone where he has a 40% chase rate. 

Robinson Cano, whose made a strong case for AL MVP, hitting the piss out of the balls (.389 wOBA, 29 HR) from the left-side of the plate, actually handling his left-handed adversaries quiet will (.368 wOBA, 14 HR). The key to retiring Cano is realizing that he is a chase hound who loves to swing. Stay out of the zone. He has offered at 52% of all pitches (45% league average) while chasing after another 36.5% of out of zone pitches. Specifically, Cano will expand the zone on the inner half of the plate, chasing after 46% of pitches that are middle-in and 46% of pitches up-and-in out of the zone. He's a tough strikeout (struck out in just 30% of all plate appearances that reach 2-strikes) so getting him to hit pitches off the plate is the next best course of action.

Other notes:

Nick Nelson has a pretty comprehensive preview of Game One at the TwinsCentric blog. Likewise, I helped Yankees blog, Bronx Baseball Daily, answer some questions regarding the 2010 Minnesota Twins.

ESPN1500’s Darren Wolfson tweeted that he believes Danny Valencia will play a significant role in the first two games of this playoffs. Without question, since the Yankees are trotting out lefties CC Sabathia and Andy Pettite, the offense will require the assistance of Valencia, whose .374 average (5th) and .441 on-base percentage (12th) are among the game's best in those splits. 

Time magazine’s Sean Gregory provides an excellent article detailing how the late-90s Twins, the doormats of the AL Central, became the dynasty they are today.

Not surprising, BallparkDigest.com named Target Field their Ballpark of the Year.

Kubel should be a difference maker in postseason

With the Twins making battle plans for the playoffs starting this week against the Yankees, numerous players will be under the microscope. One such player facing scrutiny is Jason Kubel.

Last Friday, Howard Sinker raised the question of why Kubel, whose numbers have sunk into a .249/.323/.427 ravine after peaking at .300/.369/.539 just a year ago, is getting a free pass from criticism – the same type of condemnation that has been bestowed upon the likes of Delmon Young as recently as this season. Similarly, like the local Sinker, Fangraphs.com’s Dave Cameron, a statistically-oriented pundit, took the opportunity highlight Kubel’s disappointing season as validation of his analysis that the Twins’ designated hitter-cum-right fielder has been overvalued, at least based upon the decline from the previous year.

At the beginning of the season, it became apparent that the opposition had grown acutely aware of Kubel’s tendency to decimate fastballs and therefore responded by cutting off his access to such pitches. With the fastball embargo imposed upon him, the left-handed slugger yielded a disappointing .233/.352/.397 batting line through the first two months of the season. As he began to adjust to the new approach and made better contact with breaking pitches, his power numbers began to creep northward, slugging .464 with 18 home runs by the end of August. Even with the progress, Kubel once again regressed in the home stretch. Since the leaves began to change colors and kids started to head back to school, he has been a noticeably missing component of the lineup, unable to get on base routinely (4/19 walk-to-strikeout ratio) and even less prone to driving others in.

In the end, his overall numbers have been considerably reduced; a depressed batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage have added up to, as Sinker suggests, a player ripe for criticism or perhaps even more appropriate for Cameron’s “fluke” label. So what happened to Jason Kubel’s numbers?

Kubel’s 2010 indicators – his walk rate, strikeout rate, and batted ball type – essentially mirrors that of his 2009 season, the one in which he produced the impressive totals. As most analysts saw, that season was blessed with a substantially heighted on-base percentage inflated by an even gaudier batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .327 which was well above the league’s .300 average. Basically, Kubel’s batting average and on-base percentage were buoyed by extra batted balls that fell for hits (particularly line drives and fly balls). As his BABIP began to decrease back towards average (and even drop below it at .287), so too did his overall batting average. Without these hits coupled with his rather average walk rate, Kubel’s on-base percentage normalized this year.   

  

Along the same lines, as the season wore on, Kubel also became increasingly impatient at the plate, foregoing walks in exchange for the swing of the bat and attempting to hit his way aboard. Unfortunately, this pressing translated into fewer walks, more strikeouts and higher contact with out of zone pitches. While this explains Kubel’s drop in average and on-base percentage, that doesn’t adequately explain the sudden decrease in his power numbers.

While this may be a tired song to some, the restrictions of the home field probably shares responsibility for the silencing of the Kubel boomstick.

Target Field isn’t conducive to left-handed power hitters that have enjoyed hitting to center field and right-center for their careers. Perhaps not surprisingly, Kubel enjoyed a very productive and powerful season when driving the ball to center last year. In fact, 11 of his 28 home runs exited the building in that direction while slugging .763. Since transitioning into the roomier outdoor home, Kubel has managed to hit just one of his 21 home runs and slugged .431 going up the middle.

Kubel isn’t the only one terrorized by Target Field’s daunting configuration that area. As you can see from the HitTrackerOnline.com chart provided below, the entire league found that reaching the seats in that direction was highly improbable as only five of the 116 home runs hit at the Bullseye escaped in center to right-center:

Even though the dimensions are similar, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the parks will respond the same. Be it because of the controlled environment, the offensively-friendlier configurations or because of well-positioned air conditioning vents, the Metrodome’s center field and right-center power alley boasted a significantly better proposition for straightaway and a slight pull left-handed hitter. Reviewing the chart from HitTrackerOnline.com from 2009, we see that the Homer Dome had a whole hot mess of long balls depart the playing surface there:

As you can see, in contrast to the Metrodome, Target Field provides little favors for the lefty.  Attempting to drive the ball to center is likely to result in a long fly out. In terms of the impending playoffs, Kubel’s success with the home field advantage may come by (1) increasing his patience at the plate or (2) by pulling the ball more, giving him a higher likelihood of hitting that home run.

However, unlike Bear Stearns, Kubel’s stock in New York City may skyrocket in the next week. Contrary to the layout of Target Field, New Yankee Stadium’s center field and right-center field is very inviting for left-handed hitters. While deeper than Target in right-center, the ball carries much better in that stadium, giving lefties a significant advantage:

In summation, while Kubel’s contributions to the offense have been disappointing or fluky, the postseason represents an opportunity to start anew. Certainly, limiting the options to Target Field and New Yankee Stadium gives the lefty the potential to emerge from his season-long lull and provide the lineup with much needed thunder.