Comments on: Twins Notes: Pitching to contact, Hunt scares, upped usage, and Gatsby

By: toby

toby — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:09:00 +0000

John W: All of Liriano’s BABIP woes last year were on flyball BABIP – over 100 points worse than average, if memory serves. In other words, his outfield defense is what killed him, not Hardy and Hudson.

Aaron, Liriano’s pitch f/x numbers show he’s lost FB velo and his two seamer has a touch less downward bite. He’s not throwing the same quality FB and part of me wonders whether this has something to do with being told to throw it for strikes and therefore backing off on it just a hair. If so, he should disregard everything the Twins tell him. If not, pray the velocity comes back and hope they can find something mechanical underlying it.

By: brian

brian — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:20:53 +0000

Just don’t say coddled. Or any terms describing the clubhouse, as if we know these things.

By: mike wants WINS

mike wants WINS — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:16:28 +0000

Ok, I should not have said coddled. I meant coddled from an emotional standpoint, not from a medical one. They would not comment on his injury because he complained about it this spring. I was not talking about his medical condition.

By: DrStrangeGlove

DrStrangeGlove — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:56:06 +0000

Mauer now “coddled” to the DL.

And the tide continues to roll in on the Twins’ sand castle season. Let’s hope they’re not the last ones to realize it’s probably a rebuilding year for them.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:06:55 +0000

Mauer now “coddled” to the DL.

By: mike wants WINS

mike wants WINS — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:52:14 +0000

Mauer is “sore” and they won’t comment on it. I like this org less every day. Mauer is so coddled it is ridiculous.

Cuddeyer is hitting 2nd. Ouch.

By: morts

morts — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:12:45 +0000

Urging Liriano to throw strikes is hardly “forcing a uniquely square peg into a round hole”. He’s nibbling too much and throwing too many pitches. Strikeouts are great, but not if they come at the cost of 78 pitches in 3 innings (as in Liriano’s 9 K spring performance against the Orioles), or if they come with walks (9 walks in 14.1 innings this year).

In order to be most effective for the team, Liriano needs to find a way to pitch 200+ innings per season, and to this point he’s managed 14.1 innings in 3 starts, largely because he won’t aggressively throw the ball over the plate. It’s wrong to fault Gardenhire and Anderson for addressing this problem.

By: mike wants WINS

mike wants WINS — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:08:58 +0000

I agree with Tom W, the wasting of pitches seems to be an issue.

There is an article on fangraphs on Liriano you may all find interesting…

By: Pedro Munoz

Pedro Munoz — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:16:33 +0000

I will gladly take 5 innings and 1 or 2 runs over 7 innings and 5 or 6 runs, thank you.

I have a hard time believing that telling Lirano to pitch to contact has made him this much worse. Something is off.

By: Tom W.

Tom W. — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:41:29 +0000

I don’t want to defend Gardy, but it is difficult watching Francisco go 0-2 on almost every hitter (not every hitter, but it seems like a lot) and then try to fish out a swinging strike with 3 balls that are way outside. I don’t support Gardy’s position either, and I know that many ML teams prefer their pitchers give batters nothing to hit after getting a favorable count, but it seems like Francisco wastes a lot of pitches when he is in a favorable count. I am sure that someone has some statistics on that.