Twins Baseball
If you’ve been following baseball over the last few years, you know that there’s been a pretty significant shift towards valuing defense within the game. The Rays, A’s, Red Sox, Mariners, and Blue Jays, among others, have made a point of putting quality gloves at as many positions as possible in order to keep their opponents from outscoring them.
However, at the same time that a bunch of teams were shifting their rosters towards run prevention, an interesting thing was happening up in Minnesota – the original pitching and defense organization decided to try something else.
For years, the Twins have practiced a very specific brand of baseball. Hit the ball on the ground to take advantage of the turf, run like the wind, bunt like crazy, manufacture runs, throw strikes, and play good defense. They didn’t have a single player hit 30 home runs in a season between 1988 and 2005, which is still one of the most amazing records you’ll ever see. Small ball, pitching, and defense – this was Twins baseball.
The 2010 Twins are not that kind of team, and if there was any doubt left about what the team was emphasizing this year, it was put to rest last night, when the Twins ran out the following line-up.
Denard Span, CF
J.J. Hardy, SS
Joe Mauer, C
Justin Morneau, 1B
Jim Thome, DH
Michael Cuddyer, 2B (!)
Jason Kubel, RF
Delmon Young, LF
Nick Punto, 3B
With regular starting second baseman Orlando Hudson unavailable, Ron Gardenhire’s Plan B was to take his starting right fielder and stick him at second base. He essentially chose the offensive production of Jason Kubel or Delmon Young over a more traditional defensive alignment that would have seen Brandan Harris play third, Punto at second, and Cuddyer in his normal right field spot.
When faced with the choice of offense (Kubel or Young) or defense (Punto at second, Cuddyer in right, and live with Harris at third), Gardy chose offense. It paid off, too, as Cuddyer, Kubel, and Young all slugged home runs and the Twins won their fifth consecutive game, pushing their lead in the A.L. Central to 4 1/2 games.
As much as we have talked up defensive value, the underlying point has always been that the goal is to outscore your opponent, and it doesn’t really matter how you do it. After decades of trying to beat their opponents 1-0, the Twins have finally decided to try putting together a roster of guys who can whack the baseball, and it’s working really well.
It’s just a little humorous that as baseball moves more towards the Twins model, the Twins are simultaneously moving away from it.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Yet the Twins still employ a stiff at 3b. STILL!!
How would we know they were the Twins if they didn’t?
=( /sob
My favorite bit from last night as well:
Gardenhire on why he moved J.J. Hardy into Hudson’s No. 2 spot in the batting order: “I just like an H in there.”
http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/95289249.html?page=2&c=y
And yet that stiff has more WAR this season than the Twins everyday LF, RF, and DH – despite having 52, 95, and 63 PA’s less than those guys, respectively.
Ummm, no.
Delmon has more WAR than Punto, at least as I’m writing this.
This is neat, but the traditional infield alignment of Punto-Hardy-Hudson-Morneau is a pretty defensively sound infield. Bringing Hardy in (with his good defense and regressing bat) and moving Punto to 3B full time was in line with the Twins Way (circa ’88-’05). Add that to three pitchers who are adept at getting ground balls (Pavano, Liriano and Blackburn) and it works. I think that’s about the same as the Twins Way Era.
Their oddity is not a temporary switch to second (for a guy that was drafted as a SS), but their outfield which was a joke in the ALDS last year. If they had a decent-hitting, great-fielding reserve to start on a Baker/Slowey day, they’d really be able to maximize their lineup. It’d also help if Thome always batted against RHPs instead of being used on whims.
I wish Thome would learn how to slap the ball down the 3rd base line instead of trying to kill the ball and either strike out or hit it to a shifted infielder. If a player makes a million a year you would think he could hit the ball.
Yeah, Thome’s never goign to make it in the Major Leagues if he doesn’t change that approach. That guy sucks at hitting.
And this movement towards slugging hasn’t turned the D into a bunch of butchers either. They may not be a flashy D but they really limit the critical mistakes as shown by the low error total (no matter how uninformative that stat is) and when the offense can put up runs this well thats all that matters.
I can’t really say for Cuddyer, because he has some range, but if you watch Delmon Young this is demonstrably false. There’s at least a ball per game that he isn’t able to get to that lands for a single or is turned into a double because he either gets bad reads on balls or is just slow. He’s gotten better at taking clear routes to the ball this year, but he’s still slow afoot and in reacting. Delmon and Kubel are still butcher-ish..
To be fair, Jason has no knees. Now that’s no excuse for putting him out there… But he still doesn’t have any knees.
Delmon seems to have more trouble on balls hit behind him. On the other hand, he does a much better job of getting the balls that are hit in front on him.
Could be wrong, but it’s what I see with the naked eye.
I wouldn’t call a 0.2 UZR/150 in LF on the year so far “butcherish.” The sample size is ludicrously small, obviously, but we’re not projecting here, we’re talking about what’s already happened.
For every time you’ve seen Delmon get a “bad read” or be “too slow” in reaching a ball, I’ve seen him increase his range and make catches that would have likely been impossible for 2008-2009 Delmon. Personal observation means absolute squat, especially when you’re watching on TV – how many times are we even shown Delmon’s reaction to the crack of the bat? By the time the camera’s focused on him, the ball has been in the air for an entire second. Let’s stick with the numbers – he’s simply preventing runs at a better rate this year than he was ever before in LF, *so far.* I don’t know if it will last, but to this point, it’s a fact — at least, as close to “fact” as we can get with fielding metrics.
I’m not going to ascribe this change to anything in particular, but I can’t imagine losing 30 pounds in the offseason has *hurt* his fielding.
RC: 1) The eye still means plenty, even on this site. Why have the Fans (and why does Tango do the same) projections if the eye means nothing? Did everyone who filled out a Fans player projection do some heavy arithmetic, or did they mix their observations with the statistics in front of them? One thing you can do with small sample sizes (especially when they belie past outcomes) is verify by observation.
2) By saying that “for every… I’ve seen” you’re conceding the point that every game he fails to make one less play than the average fielder. I’m not saying Delmon is terrible (weight, apathy, etc may have factored into below-expectations fielding in years past).
3) On TV, there’s a replay of almost every from a variety of angles. Many times (particularly on the non-routine plays) they show the whole play from the perspective of the fielder, which allows you to see their reaction time, the route they took, and the speed at which they advanced toward the ball.
4) You’ve failed to consider any reasons why the UZR/150 is improved this season beyond the anecdotal (weight). But one thing to consider is that the UZR is being derived from a small sample of opportunities in the field. Among LFs with more than 300 innings in the field, Delmon is tied for the 4th fewest putouts (which means he’s not seeing many chances).
If it weren’t for the small sample of UZR this year, Delmon would be just a butcher in LF. But because there may be evidence of improvement (although there is still anecdotal observation that says much more improvement is needed), he’s only butcher-ish.
Cuddyer has “some range?”
He’s a lumbering slug.
Not Dave: Relative to Young (pre-2010) and Kubel, he’s Usain Bolt.
Relative to Little Nicky Punto I’m Jon Rauch.
1) The Twins were terrible for much of the stretch from 1988 to 2005. The heart of that era featured 8 consecutive losing seasons and 4 consecutive years of 90 or more losses.
b) This may be the best defensive team the Twins have put on the field since 2002.
And, despite the awfulness of their defensive OF, their starting IF has been very, very good this year.
3B – Punto 24.8 UZR/150
SS – Hardy 14.8 UZR/150
2B – Hudson 14.8 UZR/150
1B – Morneau 19.1UZR/150
And between the four of them, they’ve committed all of 3 errors so far this season.
I was just talking to my brother about the wisdom of putting a hitter in 2B and not worrying so much about D. I guess the Twinkies are one step ahead of us.
Why do you think it’s wise, Matt?
Speaking for the group of fans over at Twinkie Town (SBNation Twins site), we were, by and large, terrified by the idea. It cost the twins at least one double play.
It also netted the Twins at least a homer.
Would he have not gotten that HR if he was playing RF?
I for one thought the Twins should have had Harris play 3B and move lil Nicky Punto to 2B. Still have Kubel in the lineup. It’s not like Thome did anything.
Didn’t Cuddy cost them a run because he was unable to turn a double play?
Any one of Delmon, Cuddyer, or Kubel would have been as likely to sit against a right hander as Thome. Each homered, and obviously Thome gave them a homer threat every time he batted. The point is that the more-thunder-in-the-lineup ploy worked. You can’t just say “see, you should have sat THAT guy” after the box score comes in.
The alternative would have been Harris, who’s neither a glove nor a bat, especially against a right hander.
Good grief it’s not about choosing offense over defense (or vice versa), it’s about overall value. If the defensive upgrade was more significant than the offensive difference, then they would have gone that way.
And I’m still a bit leary of some defensive metrics – specifically as to how they really aggregate on a team basis… you take a 3rd baseman with great range and is that completely additive if you have a high range shortstop? It’s like the 1B who ranges far off the bag to dive and cutoff what would be a routine groundout to the 2nd baseman… looks good on the UZR and range, but is it really helping the team as much as expected/predicted? The other question I have (in general) is if you have above average pitching does that make lessen the impact defensive value?
And the RedSox did not choose defense… if they had, Gonzalez is their starting SS and Scutaro is playing elsewhere. They are choosing best overall value – it just easier to swallow when ESPN/media put a pretty bow on it and dumb it down. It just so happened that the players that were available in free agency were known defensive players.
While this may be true, they do not seem to be losing much defensively and just shattered the record for fewest errors by a major league team in the first 50 games of a season with only 12.
Former MN boy living in Seattle area who actually was at the game last night. I was quite surprised by the choice to put Cuddyer at second and go with offense instead of defense. Paid off with the HRs by Cuddyer, Kubel, Young. However, could have easily backfired. The defense was poor last night on a number of plays. Cuddyer looked ill at ease at second. He butchered the “base hit” by Ichiro (maybe sort of a bad hop) and was part of the first butchered double play attempt. The ironic part was when they moved him back to RF in the ninth and then the infield butchered another double play attempt anyway. Also, Delmon had one go over his head for a double that sure looked like a poor attempt.
Couple statistical oddities in the game. Lead off hitter Span actually led off the inning all four times he came up. Even stranger, the cleanup hitter Morneau also led off all 4 times he came up. In each of the innings that Span led off, only 3 guys batted.
Hasn’t Cuddyer spent a good deal of time at 3B in his career? And doesn’t Punto play both 2B and 3B very well? Why wasn’t Cuddyer at 3B and Punto at 2B? I’m not saying it would be a better choice, but I don’t know what the reasoning would be for Cuddyer at 2B.
Because Punto is the “starter” at third, thus that’s where he “needs” to play.
It’s Gardylogic™, don’t try to make sense of it, your brain will turn to mush.
Haha, I approve of Gardylogic™. Agreed, don’t try to make sense of it. Us Twins fans sometimes don’t even understand what he’s doing.
That’s managers in general. This White Sox fan has to deal with Ozzie’s choices, i.e. let’s sit the good players and play the all-glove guys at DH.
Cuddyer played quite a bit of 2B in his early years in the majors as well.
I didn’t realize that. Still, he’s played 157 games at 3B compared to 62 at 2B. But I’m surprised he hasn’t played third since 2005. I could’ve sworn he’d spent some time there in the last couple of years. So it probably didn’t matter much which one he played.
The Twins’ defense is still pretty good.
The author of this article acts like the Twins just one day arbitrary decided to change their strategy from small ball to mashing home runs. This analysis omits the glaring fact that two of the best hitters in baseball (one of which is turning into the greatest hitting catcher of all time, happened to come up the same year the Twins had the #1 pick, and happened to be from St. Paul, MN) came up at about the same time.
While this it is a funny observation that the Twins seem to be moving away from small ball while the rest of the league embraces it, I doubt that the Twins sudden addition of power has anything to do with a conscious decision by the GM. Rather, Mauer and Morneiu descending into the Twin’s organization both add offense themselves, and improve hitters like Kubel, Young, and Cuddyer.
I do agree that a more conservative strategy, possibly the preference of a Tom Kelly coached team, might have went with a stronger defensive alignment on Monday night.
I hope the Twins do not (or did not) suddenly change their organizational disposition towards manufacturing runs and emphasizing pitching and defense. I don’t think they have. We have very good hitters. Above average SP and a shaky CP situation. I wish we had a stronger defensive outfield. And I hope our inability to hit with runners in scoring position lately is not a trend. It is a very exciting time to be a Twins fan. Cheers to what could be one of the greatest Twins teams of all time.
“Small ball, pitching, and defense – this was Twins baseball.”
While Cameron points out an amusing irony here with Mauer, Morneiu, Cuddyer, and Kubel all in their prime, the idea that this WAS the Twins model is totally unfounded.
It used to be knwon as “Whitey [Herzog] Ball” … To the tune of 3 WS in the 80s. It featured a champion team where the HR leader had less than 20 HR (Hendrick), and in 85 it illustrated the last player to collect 100+ RBI whilehitting less than 10 HR.
The 1990 Reds might have been the last “Speed, Defense, and Pitching” success.
Before the years listed, the Twins had success with their version of “Harvey’s Wallbangers” (82 Brewers), then fielded a well-balanced team in 91.
To me the term that describes Twins Baseball is “homegrown”, and that is a very moneywise way to go about it if you have the talent in identification and development.