Over the Baggy

Figuring hitters out, a baseball lifer told me recently, is like trying to untangle a giant knot.

At first you just try to attack it in the easiest manner possible. If that does not work, you pick another course. And then another and another. You keep trying different things until something gives and you attack that spot until the knot becomes and unraveled mess of string with a sub-.200 batting average and a ticket back to Triple-A.

That, in ...

Who IS This Guy?

At six-foot-six and just 175 pounds, 18-year-old Trey Ball from New Castle High School in Indiana has an extremely projectable frame, one that experts agree will fill out nicely as he matures. The consensus, however, appears split between where he should play: Pitcher or outfield.

Who Could He Be?

The majors have few left-handed power arms that average mid-90s fastballs. Tampa’s David Price, Texas’ Derek Holland ...

In what is thought of as one of the greatest Simpsons episodes of all-time, Nuclear Power Plant owner turned softball manager, C. Montgomery Burns gave one of his ringers, Daryl Strawberry, an invaluable hitting tip.

“You there. Strawberry. Hit a home run,” advised the decrepit hitting instructor. Strawberry took the counsel and smacked a dinger onto the Springfield Expressway. In a perfect world designed by major league hitting coaches, life would be that ...

On Saturday, May 4, Ryan Doumit, at .203, was not even hitting his weight. With a slugging percentage of .291 to boot, the Minnesota Twins’ switch-hitting catcher/DH was a few nights of binge eating hot wings from matching that number as well. As a regular guest of manager Ron Gardenhire’s vital fifth spot in the batting order, Doumit’s woes directly impacted the team’s offense. An offense, which had concluded April with just 92 runs scored – ahead of only the Chicago ...

Tags: minnesota twins, ryan doumit, video scouting

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On Tuesday night in Boston, Aaron Hicks compounded his issues with the manager with a seemingly innocuous action on the field in the eighth inning with the Twins securely up by six runs.

With Jonny Gomes up at the plate, the Sox’s beefy right fielder lifted a fly ball into short center field. Hicks came racing in from the deepest regions of center field Fenway (which is also shallow Maine) and in one motion nabs the falling sphere and flips it to second baseman ...

After a slow start in the season’s opening week, Joe Mauer was once again cracking line drives – right on schedule – but has more recently found himself in one of the worst stretches of offensive baseball of his career and quite possibly the worst since he was a fetus.

Pardon the arbitrary endpoints, from April 6 to April 20, Mauer had collected 18 hits in 35 at bats (a whopping .514 batting average). In that time, the Twins catcher was blistering the baseball ...

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Just a month removed from being celebrated for his amazingly quick recovery from Tommy John surgery less than 11 months ago, Mike Pelfrey’s numbers through his first four starts in a Twins uniform have been extremely disappointing.

This raises the questions of whether or not Pelfrey is completely ready for reintroduction into the major leagues. After all, this follows step with the plight of Joe Nathan in 2010 who rushed through his rehab only to hit a wall ...

After his start on Opening Day, I chatted with Twins starter Vance Worley about his on-going efforts to add a change-up to his arsenal.

Worley’s response was that he had not quite comfortable throwing this particular pitch. Being a “feel” pitch, the right-hander bounced between throwing a split-finger change and a more conventional circle change, he admitted to rarely throwing it.

On Saturday at USCellular Field, Worley told reporters after ...

Attachment 3807Let’s just say Brian Dozier has had a slow start to his 2013 season.

Repping a less than stellar.189/.279/.243 batting line through his first 44 plate appearances, the Twins’ second baseman has been extremely inoffensive and has statistically continued where he left off during following his demotion in August of last year. Despite this slow beginning, there is reasons to not lose hope that Dozier’s career will fall into a no-hit middle infielder that has ...

Let’s just say Brian Dozier has had a slow start to his 2013 season.
Sporting a less than stellar.189/.279/.243 batting line through his first 44 plate appearances, the Twins’ second baseman has been extremely inoffensive and has statistically continued from where he left off following his demotion in August of last year. Despite this slow beginning, there are reasons to hope that Dozier’s career will not fall into the no-hit-middle infielder-hole that has plagued ...

Catcher framing is extremely popular in baseball research circles right now. Go over to Fangraphs.com or BaseballProspectus.com and you will find several studies and articles on the subject. It’s Hansel hot right now.

While we can determine which catchers are better at getting more out-of-zone pitches called strikes than others, we still do not have a full grasp on what it means to a team’s bottom line. In some ways, it feels like a butterfly effect. If ...

Updated 04-17-2013 at 02:05 PM by Kevin

Tags: catcher framing, joe mauer, low strike

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Leading baseball in strikeouts probably is not what Aaron Hicks had in mind when he daydreamed about his first week in the major leagues.

He probably has visions of scorching liners into the right-center gap or sending a shot into the overhang in right field. He pictured himself dancing off of first and swindling second with blaze of dust behind him. Instead, he has made so little contact at the plate that his bat is going through separation anxiety.
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You would think with a moniker like “Vanimal” that Vance Worley would be a rock star-party hard individual. Some meathead with torn off sleeves and who breaks “No Pepper” signs on the backstop with a 99-mile per hour fastball.

That’s simply not Vance.

He is not a huck-n-chuck hurler who puts little thought in the process and just pitches on animal instincts. He realizes that his stuff isn’t electric. He knows that his fastball doesn’t wow radar ...

Congratulations, Mr. Hicks. You are going where few Minnesota Twins minor leaguers have gone before: Straight to the Opening Day starting lineup.

Since the opening of the Metrodome in 1982, there have been just seven players in the Minnesota starting lineup to jump to from the minors to the Opening Day lineup: Jim Eisenreich, Chuck Knoblauch, Marty Cordova, Chad Allen, Cristian Guzman, Joe Mauer and Tsuyoshi Nishioka.

While all of those aforementioned ...