Cuddyer's power decline

As a Twins fan, it is easy to get frustrated with Michael Cuddyer.

As Howard Sinker pointed out earlier this week, Cuddyer is practically oh-for-the-year with runners in scoring position. In fact, Sinker went so far as to calling Cuddyer’s early season production “the worst of the worst”. Given that his numbers with men in scoring position this season is 4-for-32, tied for sixth worst in baseball, it’s hard not feel the same way. After all, with a team that is dilapidated and desperate for heroes, the Twins need one making nearly $12 million this season to step up.

Heading into 2009, Cuddyer made some wholesale changes to his approach at the plate. In his set up, he lowered the position of his hands, something he told 1500ESPN that he had done in two-strike situations and Tony Oliva convinced him to hit that way all the time. Additionally, Cuddyer incorporated a much more aggressive leg kick. Both adjustments appeared to amplify his power stroke, leading to a career-high in both home runs (32) and slugging (.520).

Since then, however, his production has begun to slide.

For starters, using Inside Edge’s data, it doesn’t take a hardened scout to tell the ball isn’t jumping off Cuddy’s bat in the same manner in which it did the past two seasons. Likewise, the small sample measurement of his home runs agree, as the actual speed off of his bat appears to be down as well compared to the previous two seasons:

Cuddyer’s power decline
	Well-Hit Average	Speed Off Bat (HR only)
2009	.255	108.2
2010	.259	106.4
2011	.167	102.1
MLB Average	.201	103.3

(Via MyInsideEdge.com and HitTrackerOnline.com)

In his 2009 swing, we see what was then his ne w approach at the plate. Although he added a more aggressive leg kick – something that can mess with a hitters’ timing – Cuddyer demonstrates a smooth motion and good weight transference, staying back, and then bringing his bat quickly through the hitting zone.

This season, using a clip from Cuddyer’s first home run of the year in Baltimore, we see the same mechanics except that slightly before he hits the apex of his leg kick, he begins moving his weight forward. Yes, it is minor but it appears to prematurely set his swing in motion which would lead to being caught out-front on some pitches. Along with the decline in hard hit balls the past two seasons, Cuddyer also witnessed a spike in groundballs which could be a byproduct of his increased amount of contact with out-of-zone pitches (also up as well).

While a vocal amount of the population seems to want to assign his early season ineptitude on him simply, you know, sucking, I am a bit more skeptical that this is his true talent given his 2009 display of power but rather remnants of an off-season full of physical tribulations.

After the 2010 season, it was revealed that Cuddyer was playing the season’s entirety with pain in his right knee, which would explain why he would be transferring his weight off of his back leg sooner in his swing. In what was supposed to be a routine arthroscopic procedure to repair the knee, it actually was the first of three afflictions this off-season.

Shortly after going through his knee surgery at the end of October, doctors discovered that Cuddyer needed an emergency appendectomy. Interestingly enough, sluggers like the White Sox’s Adam Dunn and St Louis’s Matt Holliday both needed the same procedure this year. Sports Illustrated’s Will Carroll, a sport injury expert, said in reference to Dunn’s recovery that the procedure is “minimally invasive that it is almost nothing.” Carroll speculated that it should take a player out of pocket for seven to ten days. While Dunn has struggled offensively nonetheless, the younger Holliday has mashed for the Cardinals so far this year post-operation.

To make matters worse, Cuddyer battled a nasty wart problem on the bottle of his left foot which eventually led to it being removed just as spring training was firing up. (If you think that the wart was a minor event that shouldn’t affect someone’s playing time, I suggest you look again at the size and location of the scar once again.) Needless to say, it’s no small wonder that one of the longest tenured Twin (one who played in all but four games last year) was ever able to get himself into playing condition.

From reports from those that have spent time within the Twins clubhouse, Cuddyer is not the type of player to complain or make excuses about various ailments. Of course, he’s not in much of a position to do so either. Unlike say, Joe Mauer, who had surgery in December on his knee, Cuddyer is playing for a contract while Mauer is settling into his first year of his extension like a warm bath. The Twins realize that because of the significant long-term investment with Mauer, it is best to allow him to fully recover rather than push him to play through any sort of ailments. Cuddyer on the other hand, does not have the luxury of taking off a month or two in hopes of getting back to 100%, rather he has to labor through the aches and pains in hopes of performing well enough earn his next payday.

Is there value in being consistently able to be counted on to play day-in and day-out despite substandard numbers? It’s hard to say. Sabrists would say no. Managers would say absolutely. What can be agreed upon by both camps is that the Twins need him to not only play every day but to also convert in scoring opportunities.

Is it possible that we will see the 2009 Cuddyer ever again? Given the laundry list of reasons why his power may be gone, I believe it is unlikely that we will. Still, so far in May, we have see good signs of a rebound, going 9-for-31 (.290) the past eight games. Some of those hits will eventually come with runners in scoring position. Also, with the Blue Jays in town and sending back-to-back left-handers to the mound tonight and tomorrow, we could see upwardly mobile progression of his numbers this weekend.

Twins need remaining M&M boy to breakout of slump

Since his quick burst of offense against the Cleveland Indians after his bout with the flu almost two weeks ago, Justin Morneau has been stuck in a punch-less morass the past three series, going 3-for-26 (.115) with just the lone extra base hit.

Sure, he’s coming off a concussion that kept him from baseball activities from July to February and he has dropped a rapid dozen pounds from the virus, but Morneau isn’t blaming his performance on either of those two items. Truthfully, he’s probably right. Though they certainly play an influential factor, his overall timing is slightly off keeping him from being the same hitter as last year.

In general Morneau is doing well with his plate discipline. His contact rate is about the same and he has even whittled down his strike outs. He is a tad more reluctant to work for a walk but the bigger problem is that he simply isn’t making the same hard contact as he did in 2010. His overall line drive rate has dropped significantly (from 22% to 16%) while Inside Edge’s data agrees with the assessment as their stats say his well-hit average down over 100 points (from .345 to .230).

Last year, Morneau thrived by using the entire field. The left-hander masher put up very impressive numbers while driving the ball to the big part of the field, hitting .446 with a .689 slugging percentage to center field. This season however his results, outside of pulling the ball, have been disappointing. In fact, he has hit safely just twice on 22 balls (.182) to center. What we see is a massive tail-off from his hearty line drive rate to center in 2010 (24%) to a new career low in 2011 (13%).

Despite hitting his first home run of the year off of Luke Hochevar this weekend, the Royals effectively silenced Morneau’s bat, holding him to two hits. Those that tuned into the Royals broadcast on Friday night caught ex-Royal and commentator Frank White revealing Kansas City’s plan of attack against the left-hander – something that may swiftly become a blueprint for retiring him unless he adjusts. White noted that the Royals wanted to work Morneau away due to his increased tendency to open up on the ball. True to form, Bruce Chen and the relief staff peppered Morneau with pitches away and he essentially got himself out.

Interestingly enough, MLB.com’s beat writer for the Royals, Dick Kaegel, had written on Monday that the franchise was finally evolving in terms of their attempts to study opponents. Instead of sending advance scouts out to on the road to study the upcoming opponents, the team was relying more on video footage. Let’s take a look at what the Royals’ revamped scouting department may have seen:

A year ago, during his torrent display of offense, he demonstrated excellent timing. In this specific match-up, you will see that Morneau does not get overzealous and attempt to yank the pitch. He stays back and his hips remain closed which allows him to hit the ball with authority to the left side of the field. Needless to say, this was a fairly regular occurrence for him. However, if you compare that to this year’s version, you see a slightly different Morneau that leaves him exposed:

Focusing on his hip in the 2011 clip, you can see it opening up and committing to pulling the ball despite being pitched away. Because of this, when Cleveland’s pitcher throws the ball to the outer-half of the zone Morneau is left with using only his upper body in his swing and limiting his ability to hit the ball anywhere besides the right side of the field. Therefore, even if he would have tried to go with the pitch, he would have been left with having to muscle the ball rather than driving it as he did in the 2010 clip. Instead of being laced to the left-center field region, he turns the ball over to the second base Orlando Cabrera for an easy out.

So even though he was able to generate a few hits in the series against the Indians – including driving the ball to the wall twice in the series – the Royals likely picked up on this and directed their pitching staff to hit the outer-half of the plate on him.

It was unreasonable to expect Morneau to return from his long layoff with just a handful of spring training at-bats without any glitches. Unfortunately, similar to his mechanics, the timing could not be any worse as seemingly ever other key player is struggling or hurt. Although progress is being made with each plate appearance, with the team dead-last in home runs and slugging, the Twins need him to find his 2010 swing again sooner rather than later.

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To commemorate the recent no-hitter, DiamondCentric now offers the "Francisco LiriaNo-No" shirts:

The Legend of LiriaNoNo

For just the fifth time in Minnesota history (sixth if you want to include Dean Chance’s rain-shortened outing in 1967), a Twins pitcher has completed a ball game without allowing a hit.

Not only was this Liriano first ever complete game at the major league level, but the no-hitter was also his first complete game at any level. My research showed that dating back to 1960 no pitcher had ever thrown a no-hitter in their first ever professional complete game. Considering the amount of complete games pitchers threw pre-1990, I’d wager that this may actually be the first instance in history of this happening. It was a Steve Nebraska-esque performance.

Alas, savory and memorable as this no-hitter is, it was far from perfect. Liriano managed to be “effectively” wild as Sox hitters missed on pitches out over the plate or swung while they were ahead in the count. After all, Liriano put six men on with walks therefore a bit more patience by the White Sox offense and the story of the game could have been focused on the Twins inability to score runs once again.

Looking back at the data, Liriano struggled to get ahead of hitters last night:

Category	Grade	Key Stat	Selected Outing(s)	MLB Avg.	Grade
Working Ahead in Count	D	1st pitch strike %	37%	58%	F
		1 of first 2 pitches for strike %	77%	85%	F
		2 of first 3 pitches for strikes %	41%	60%	F
		% of 0-1 counts that become 0-2 counts	75%	48%	A+
		% of 1-1 counts that become 1-2 counts	40%	54%	F

(myinsideedge.com)

More critically, he threw his fastball for a strike just 52% of the time, well-below the league norm of 64%. In theory, a more patient team may have made the lefty pay for that lack of command. When it came down to it, the Chicago lineup came to Liriano’s rescue by swinging at whatever strikes came into the zone instead of making him prove that he could repeat it.

I would imagine that the instruction from the Sox bench was to “wait for your pitch” or “let him earn it” but far too frequently Chicago’s hitters instead took a hack and put it in play at fielders, much to Liriano’s delight. Several were indeed well-struck but plays by his outstanding defense, like Denard Span’s catch in the left-center gap or Danny Valencia’s grab behind the base in the seventh inning, extinguished any hopes of the Sox starting a rally.

Reviewing the MLB.tv footage as well as the pitch f/x data found at BrooksBaseball.net and comparing it to his previous start against Tampa Bay, to me, there is little indication of any visual adjustments – release point or otherwise – that may suggest a wholesale improvement based upon the coaching staff’s between-start tutorial. Admittedly, later in the ball game there is some evidence of him bending a bit more and finishing lower, helping drive the ball down in the zone, but through the first several innings Liriano was finishing higher resulting in pitches up. Thankfully, he had plenty of help from his aforementioned defense including three double-plays turned behind him.

In addition to facing an overzealous lineup, Liriano also did well pitching backwards towards the latter half of the ballgame. After mainly using his fastball to start hitters off in the first three innings of the game, Liriano turned to his slider and changeup to start the count from the sixth inning onwards. In fact, 9 of the final 13 hitters started off with non-fastballs.

While we analysts are all trying to figure out what this means in terms of his mechanics and his future, right now is a time to relish the historical moment and recognize the significance of a night that will live forever in Twins’ lore.

(Shameless plug: Get your FranKKKKie shirt at www.DiamondCentric.com)

OtB Twins Notes: Pavano's problems, Liriano's release point, baserunning and more

Following being pulled from the game on Sunday with a 6-2 deficient and in line for his third loss of the season, starter Carl Pavano went all Red Ross in the dugout with an unfortunate baseball bat.

While it may be interpreted by some as a childish act of frustration, Pavano demonstrated that there is some passion left on the team as it finishes April in a nasty tailspin.

Part of Pavano’s personal problems extend for a noticeable decline in ground balls (dropped from 52% to 43%) and a hike in walks allowed (up from 1.5 BB/9 to 2.8). Also, after leading baseball the past two seasons with inciting the most out-of-zone swings, he has regressed in this area too, now down to 27%, below the league average. (It should also be noted that his overall zone rate has fallen as well.) For Pavano, who is not to be mistaken as a strikeout pitcher, this represents somewhat of an issue. What this means is opponents aren’t fishing for those off the plate pitches, bouncing into grounders and are much more likely to take a walk.

It might be that opposing teams have figured out his approach. Considering Pavano has been one of the premier pitchers at getting strike one, it is not surprising to see that hitters this season have teed off on his first pitch. Heading into yesterday’s game, opponents have gone 8-for-16 (.500) with a double and a home runs (.875 slugging) but have little success in other counts.

Following Friday’s game, Ron Gardenhire lamented the team’s overall baserunning, particularly Danny Valencia’s inability to second from second on Rene Tosoni’s single and Tosoni not moving up to second on the Royals misplay. This eventually led to a refresher course on base running on Saturday.

According to BillJamesOnline.net’s accounting system for team base running, the Twins are -6 run below average on the base paths. While that number is far from the worst team (that honor goes to the Los Angeles Angels at -22), the Twins’ redemption is there impeccable stolen base rate (100%) given them a better number than they likely deserve.

Consider this: In the situations described by Gardenhire in the article – failing to score from second – the Twins have failed miserably this season. Dating back to 2002, when the Twins had a runner on second and an opportunity to score, they did so 60% of the time. This season however, they have had 31 opportunities to score from second but successfully converted just 9 times (15%). Without much in the way of power, the offense needs to become more aggressive on the bases in those situations in order to score runs.

In efforts to straight out Francisco Liriano, the Twins coaching staff apparently showed him “diagrams” to show that his release point is off.

As someone who is fond of using data, I’m genuinely curious to know what these “diagrams” showed.

My first thought was ‘have the Twins decided to use Pitch F/X?’ If they did, I’m not certain that there is enough evidence to support that his release point is any more or less inconsistent from last year. He moves all over the rubber and has a release point that drifts in a wide array. Furthermore, Pitch F/X doesn’t necessarily show where the ball was “released” but rather it picks it up a few feet from where the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand (it can provide some insight but this needs to be considered when analyzing the data). So I doubt that they wound up using Pitch F/X info.   

From researching last Friday’s TwinsCentric post on Liriano’s inability to keep his fastball down, I mentioned that he is finishing higher in his mechanics and thus the ball has a higher likelihood of remaining up in the zone. It seems to have plenty of overlap in what the Twins were attempting to show Liriano and – while the team may be miserable to watch right now – I’ll be looking for any changes in this area following Tuesday’s start in Chicago.

Speaking of mechanics, Justin Morneau’s swing has been off this season. He has been opening up far too much and pulling out with his upper body resulting in turning over a pitches middle-away rather than drive those offerings to center like he did a year ago.

On Friday, the Royals were able to pick this flaw apart. In fact, Kansas City was so confident in their ability to retire Morneau, that they left right-handed reliever Blake Wood in to face him while the tying runs were on second and third in a 3-1 game. Wood struck him out and stranded the two runners. In general, Morneau’s swing looked awful as he pulled off on every pitch. According to Ron Gardenhire, Morneau has been working hard in BP to correct this and his homer on Sunday may be early signs that the hard work is paying off.

Are we seeing a much better Denard Span in center? According to John Dewan’s Plus/Minus fielding system, Span is currently the top rated defensive centerfielder at +11.

Take it with a grain considering defensive metric need a large sample size to read accurately, however Span has seemingly played with a bit more confidence in his second season in center. At Fangraphs.com, Span is the only starting center fielder who has successfully converted all of the balls in his zone into outs leading to a baseball-best 1.000 revised zone rating. Additionally, he has tracked down 16 more balls out of the zone for the fourth-best mark in MLB.

Last year, there were numerous incidents of Span deferring to his neighboring outfielder instead of tracking the ball himself. This season, he has seemingly taken charge as the captain of the outfield and has aggressively pursued flies.

Filed under former Twins members: Now with the Padres, Orlando Hudson is nine-for-nine in stolen base opportunities and is tied for second in the National League in that category.

While there were plenty of undertones regarding his clubhouse presence in addition to his soaring earning potential that possibly led to Orlando Hudson not returning to the Twins after the 2010 season, the message sent by the front office was that the team need more speed in the lineup. According to Twins general manager Bill Smith back in March:

"Hardy and Hudson did very well for us. They helped us win another division. When we went with them, we lost team speed. That was one thing we were looking to add. If we can get Casilla and Span and Nishioka creating havoc on the bases, then have the bombers coming up behind them, we're going to score a lot of runs." 

Offensively, Hudson is struggling some at the plate but getting on base at a decent enough clip and is managing to provide that “havoc” for San Diego. While at an age where long-term contracts would be ill-advised, perhaps the team’s assessment of his speed potential was slightly misguided.

This attempted throw back to Alex Burnett from defensive wiz Drew Butera during Sunday’s game epitomizes the Twins season thus far.

Answers for Liriano's rough start?

It has been said that great expectations often lead to greater disappointments. Through his first five starts of the season, Francisco Liriano could not be doing a better job epitomizing that sentiment if he tried.

Blessed with tremendous raw stuff, enough so that many wonks figured he could easily compete for a Cy Young award this season, Liriano has struggled mightily once again with his command, making his outings as enjoyable to watch as some useless British wedding. In 23.2 innings of abuse, Liriano has posted a disappointing equilibrium of 18 walks and 18 strike outs. In his first five starts last year, Liriano had tossed 36 innings with a solid 36-to-13 strikeouts-to-walk ratio and a miniscule 1.50 ERA. What’s more is that he has already been touched for four home runs, a total that wasn’t reached until September 7 and required 27 starts to get there.

This year? His peripherals are bad, there’s no solace in his fielding independent numbers, and he can’t find the strike zone.

Naturally, Mother Nature was a miserable wench during his most recent start, sharting snow pellets at the field and making conditions wretched for pitchers nevertheless, Liriano abided and was cuffed around by the hot-hitting Rays lineup and was excused from the bitter cold have three innings and 83 pitches.

After the start, the now 1-4 Liriano tethered to a 9.13 ERA gave reporters a self-diagnosis for his woefully start to the season:

"I've got my confidence back. I'm just missing my spots. Just leaving the ball up in the zone. Tonight was a cold night -- not fun to go out and pitch in that weather.”

Unequivocally, Liriano’s success starts with his fastball. When he is able to throw it over for a strike on a regular basis, it sets up his slider and change-up. So far this year, Liriano has struggled mightily to throw his fastball over the plate but moreover, when he does, it typically is his fastball that is hanging out there for opponents to slap around.

While Liriano was never a zen-master of control over his heater last year, he still maintained a respectable ability to get it over for a strike. That likelihood has plummeted hard:

Liriano’s fastball command
	Strike%
2010	63%
2011	54%

 

In addition to owning the league’s lowest strike rate with his fastball, he also has the second-highest well-hit average (.385) on the pitch as well.

Scouring the video archives, there seems to be a small yet critical difference in his delivery that could possibly be the source of his inability to get the ball down. In the first video from 2010, Liriano dials up a fastball to this particular right-handed hitting Ryan Spilborghs:

 

Focus on Liriano in the clip after the release. During his follow through, he has a significant amount of bend in his back when finishing, helping keep his offering low in the zone.

Compare that to Wednesday’s delivery:

 

In this fastball to Tampa’s Sam Fuld, Liriano remains more upright after his release, not finishing with the same downward action. The result was a pitch that wound up belt-high instead of knee-high and crushed to the furthest depths of Target Field. This is a trait that was shared among several of the other clips from his previous starts this year.

Here is a still-frame:

As you can see, the 2010 version has slightly more bend helping drive the ball down. Again, it is a seemingly tiny difference however it could be the distinction between a knee-high fastball and a belt-high one.

How influential can that minute factor be? Take a look at the locations of Liriano’s fastballs from those two outings:

Here we can say that the bulk of his fastballs feel into the knee-high category. Once again, there are plenty of stray bullets around the strike zone but a vast majority finished low.

Liriano’s fastball placement on Wednesday was haphazard at best with a sizeable amount finished up in the zone and over the middle of the plate.

Why is the difference in Liriano’s delivery? I don’t know. Certainly there could be a nagging back injury influencing it but the more likely scenario is that Liriano is still attempting to re-establish the feel for his mechanics after a long winter away from baseball. When the Twins refer to his “inconsistent mechanics” this is probably just one of several glitches they would like to smooth out.

It goes without saying but if Liriano wants to return to his 2011 form, he’s going to need to locate his fastball in the lower half of the strike zone on a more consistent basis. My guess? Straight out this hiccup and we will start seeing him throwing hard at the knees once again.