The 2016 season featured the second-most home runs in baseball’s history. Though a few people around baseball want to attribute it to the placement of power hitters higher in the lineup or better coaching based on better data, the evidence that both exit velocity and home runs per contact are up across the league refutes the first, and the evidence of the latter is minor. It’s a bit of an open mystery, but it’s certainly possible that the ball is different now.

In any case, the fact that homers are up is irrefutable. And it’s on the game to adjust. So I asked many of baseball’s best managers a simple question: with home runs up, how have you adjusted how you approach the game? Lineups, rotations, bullpens, hooks: is anything different for them today than it was two years ago?

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Terry Collins, New York Mets: No, really doesn’t. The game has changed, that’s the game now: home runs. And we’re lucky we got a few guys who can hit ’em. That’s where it’s at. As I said all last year, our team was built around power, so you sit back and make sure they have enough batting practice and be ready to start the game. We’ve got a good offensive team. Neil. Getting Neil Walker back, that’s big. David back and Ces and Jay and Granderson. We got a bench full of guys that could be everyday players. We’re pretty lucky.

I watched the playoffs, too, and I know what you’re talking about. I talked to Joe Maddon a couple days ago about how the playoffs may change and he said, ‘We didn’t have your pitching. I’ll leave ’em in.’

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Brian Dozier had himself quite the 2016 season. If you want to be technical, you could say he had quite the second half of the 2016 season, but that’s splitting hairs — he was still pretty good in the first half. It wasn’t historically superlative, but for second basemen in this millennium, it was pretty impressive. Now the Minnesota Twins have essentially made him available, and “four to five” teams are said to be interested in acquiring his services. Let’s take a look at who those teams could be.

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The Hardball Times Annual. You should buy it! The whole thing is good, probably. I’m admittedly biased because I wrote for the damned thing. My topic this time around was pitch-framing, and the article appears in the book, and in the book only. Everything in there is a book exclusive. That’s the way books work.

Now, here’s the deal: In the interest of maximizing sales, I’m probably not supposed to cover ground I already covered in my essay. But as you’ve presumably heard, the Twins signed Jason Castro Tuesday afternoon, and there’s an angle here I don’t want to let pass by ignored. So, it’s time for some overlap. In the book, I talk about all of this theory stuff in greater detail. But Castro going to Minnesota only further raises the floor of the worst pitch-framing teams.

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Ah, the Twins. So often over the past few offseasons the Twins have been the club whose moves cause a scratching of the head and subdued “Oh, honey” under one’s breath. The franchise has long been stuck in the traditionalist mud. Until this season, at least. In the middle of another poor year, general manager Terry Ryan was finally dismissed, replaced by the dynamic duo of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, the sort of expensively educated types populating other front offices. The moved marked a time for change… and sweet, sweet analytics!

So, naturally, the Twins’ first move this winter was to sign a light-hitting catcher. Earlier today, the club agreed to a three-year, $24 million deal with Jason Castro. But Castro’s not like the other light-hitting catchers with whom the Twins have burdened themselves in recent years. Whereas Kurt Suzuki and his fellow Minnesota backstops have been bad both on offense and behind the plate, Castro is actually very good at being a catcher. Like, really good. Hence the three-year, $24.5, million contract.

“Nick!” you exclaim, bewildered. “That $24 million is a lot of money for a guy who’s been a below-average hitter for three seasons in a row!” And you have a point, reader. Castro posted a wonderful 129 wRC+ in 2013, and then quickly fell right off the table. Catcher isn’t exactly a premium offensive position, but you’d like to see that 129 again. It’s probably not coming back. That’s more than okay, given how much value Castro provides with his framing.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Minnesota Twins farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

55 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .291/.335/.386 in Florida State League in 2016. Also saved 11 runs at shortstop, per Clay Davenport.

Scouting Report
Gordon was one of this decade’s most heavily scouted high schoolers, leaving evaluators extremely comfortable with his skill set and big-league prospects despite a lack of big tools. Scouts, who were obviously aware of Gordon’s parentage, began seeing a lot of him as a freshman when they were scouting Olympia High School senior outfielder Jesse Winker. Gordon was also a regular at all-star games and showcases throughout his high-school career. After four years, teams saw Gordon as a likely, but unexceptional defensive shortstop who would hit for average and maybe grow into some power as he approached his peak.

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Neil Allen will return as Minnesota Twins pitching coach in 2017. Expect to see more Tampa Bay Rays influence as a result.

Allen spent eight years coaching in the Rays system before coming to the Twin Cities prior to the 2015 season. He’s already incorporated a changeup philosophy since his arrival. The next steps — based on a conversation I had with him this summer — will likely include an increased emphasis on fastball command at the minor-league level.

Allen shared with me his thoughts on pitcher development, including how certain philosophies were implemented in his old organization. Given the success the Rays have had bringing quality arms to the big leagues, it should come as no surprise that he’d like to see many of them embraced within the Twins system.

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Allen on process and reports in Tampa Bay: “The philosophies come from the higher-ups. The general manager, the manager, and the pitching coordinator would get together and start the program. It would be explained to the coaches and we’d take it to the field. It was up to us — it became our responsibility — and if we didn’t see improvement in individuals, well, we had to answer to that. Why isn’t this guy getting better?

“After every game, there would be reports to fill out. We would report on consistency, on strikes, on location, on arm action. They would get those reports in Tampa Bay every night. They could see the amounts and percentages, as well as our comments on things like the depth of the breaking balls, the movement and arm speed on the changeups, the location of the fastballs. I don’t know exactly what they would do with the data, but every pitch that was thrown in the minor-league system that night was recorded.”

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Eric Longenhagen is publishing brief, informal notes from his looks at the prospects of the Arizona Fall League and, for the moment, the Fall Instructional League. Find all editions here.

As Fall Instructional League winds down here in Arizona, teams have begun playing their games earlier in the day, allowing scouts to double and triple up should they so choose, catching instrux at 9 or 10 am before moving on to the afternoon and night Fall League games. For me yesterday, that meant seeing the Brewers’ and Diamondbacks’ instructional-league teams in the early morning. Of note from that game, the Brewers lined up second-round pick Lucas Erceg at shortstop and shifted Gilbert Lara over to third. Lara’s destiny likely lies at a position other than his usual shortstop — and so, too, does Erceg’s (despite a 70-grade arm) — and this was probably more of a fun experiment or opportunity to let Lara move around than it is earnest developmental news for Erceg, who has looked great throughout instrux but can’t play shortstop.

Luis Alejandro Basabe homered the opposite way during the game. He has more power than his incredibly small frame would otherwise indicate. His double-play partner, Jasrado (Jazz) Chisholm, showed off his precocious defensive ability at shortstop, ranging to his left behind the bag, corralling an odd hop while he simultaneously made contact with second base and then making a strong, mostly accurate throw to first base from an awkward platform. It wasn’t especially pretty but an impressive play nonetheless.

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We’ve all seen those swings so terrible that a batter can’t help but smile. Swings like this one from Brandon Phillips last year.

Phillips, of course, isn’t the only victim of this sort of thing. He’s been a league-average major-league hitter for a decade, which is a substantial accomplishment. But even accomplished hitters can look bad, can get it very wrong.

Were Phillips batting not for a last-place club but one contending for the postseason, we might gnash our teeth. Couldn’t he see that was a slider? What was he thinking? What was he looking at?

The answer to that last question, turns out, is way more complicated than it seems. Phillips clearly should have laid off a breaking ball that failed to reach the plate. He clearly has done that — otherwise, he wouldn’t have had a major-league career. So what happened? What did he see? Or not see? Ask hitters and experts that question, and the answers are vague, conflicting, and sometimes just strange.

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Yes, it’s true that this is the year of the second baseman. As a group, second basemen are putting up better offensive numbers than they have in nearly a century, and are outhitting their defensively challenged counterparts in left field for the first time in the history of the live-ball era, dating back to 1920. And yes, it’s true that power across the sport is nearly at an all-time high. The league’s power output has returned to peak steroid-era levels, with this year’s isolated slugging percentage and home runs per plate appearance trailing only the year 2000 as the most power-laden season in the game’s history.

Those trends are real, and they should help shape the way we evaluate hitter’s performances in 2016. But don’t let those trends fool you: Brian Dozier is truly having a season for the ages.

The Minnesota Twins’ second baseman clubbed three home runs against Kansas City on Monday afternoon, bringing his season total to 38. Only Mark Trumbo has hit more homers than Dozier for the season; only David Ortiz has a higher ISO. Dozier’s homered eight times in the last week and has been baseball’s most valuable player in the second half according to WAR. His .298 ISO is the highest unadjusted figure in the expansion era (1961-present) for a second baseman and the highest by any second baseman not named Rogers Hornsby in baseball history.

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Byron Buxton played a major league game for the Minnesota Twins last night, the first since his most recent demotion to Triple-A Rochester last month. Also, in that game, Byron Buxton hit a big dinger:

It’d be great to see Buxton succeed. You hate to see any individual fail, let alone one with the type of promise which Buxton possesses. He’s still just 22 — this thing’s far from over — but thus far, Buxton’s done little to deliver on that promise. So we look for developments.

Upon his demotion in early August, I detailed, with the help of hitting instructor Ryan Parker, the numerous changes we’ve already seen in Buxton’s swing. So of course, I was interesting in seeing what that swing looked like this go-around. Particularly so when that swing led to a dinger in Buxton’s first game back.

Buxton had a leg kick in high school, which the Twins muted upon their drafting of him in favor of the organization’s go-to “front foot down early” hitting approach. That’s what we saw in 2015. That’s what we saw in the beginning of 2016, too, though after his first demotion to Triple-A in April, he returned a month later with a leg kick. Given the lack of success Buxton experienced in that stint, it was worth wondering whether Buxton and the Twins would stick with the leg kick, or revert to the original plan.

The leg kick’s still there, and maybe the most important note to be gleaned from this at-bat is that Buxton stuck with the leg kick throughout the count, even after it got to two strikes, something he wasn’t always doing his last time in the bigs. Where Buxton used to shorten up by going back to the toe-tap with two strikes, we’re now seeing Buxton commit to the leg kick more than ever, though it comes with the same caveat Parker provided in my analysis of Buxton last month: the foot’s still coming down before the upper-half of the swing begins, negating much the timing and power the leg kick is intended to provide.

As a counter, watch the .gif above again and pay close attention to where in the swing Buxton’s front foot plants on the ground, and then do the same for this Josh Donaldson swing:

Of course, comparing any hitter to Donaldson is unfair, but if you want to see what an effective leg kick looks like, look no further than Donaldson.

It’s just another something to monitor with Buxton. They could’ve abandoned the leg kick altogether, and they didn’t. To me, that’s a positive sign. The kick itself could still probably use some ironing out, but the committal with two strikes seems to indicate that the plan is to stick with this approach for the time being. The strikeouts never went away, but Buxton homered in four consecutive Triple-A games last week, and he’s already got the first of this go-around in the bigs under his belt. Byron Buxton isn’t going away any time soon, and neither is his intrigue.