Spring Training

  Relevant or not? I haven’t seen a single Spring Training game, but have followed on the internet and read comments to gauge how things are going. With only a week left, we should see starters going deeper into pitch counts and regulars getting more playing time. By now the magic of baseball is back in our minds, and many are ready to be done with this month of baseball that is more dedicated to sun-bathing and the once vibrant Florida night life. For the Twins, they get to come back home to an even more fridged night life to accompany temperatures that are hovering around freezing, what motivation. A common mistake by the common fan is to judge how a player’s season is going to turn out by the results in spring training. Any elitist might tell you it is a worthless month of baseball, but is it really? It seems managers like to put some weight on results when deciding on who wins a starting position. Every year this happens, and this year a big change was in our favorite NYY for the CF spot. Gardner won the spot and sent the former alleged center-piece of a Johan Santana deal, Cabrera, down to AAA. So for some, this part of the season matters. Let me just highlight some of my man-crush spring training Twins-related snippets. 

1. Punto vs. Tolbert.
  Tell me why Punto was named outright SS already? Defense? Both have had decent ST results, but Tolbert has twice the AB’s and a very good BB ratio (which is more important than AVG in ST IMO). I’m not a big Tolbert fan (which none of us are), but I think he might be a better option for an everyday player than the Poon. Then again, I’m sure Gardy will put Tolbert and his brilliant show of power this spring at SS plenty this season. Of course, that head-first slide gives the Poon a lead in scrappiness. At least we know going into the season that whoever is at SS is going to battle their tail off.

2. BB/K ratio.
  From a glance at the stats it seems every player has shown good patience at the plate. Except Delmon Young, who hasn’t walked once, yet has K’d 10 times in 61 AB’s. Don’t be too encouraged by his SLUG, because if he ever wants to get better he needs to stop swinging at balls outside the zone. I am under the impression he will struggle this year and lose his spot to Span. That said, its nice to see a lot of BB’s in the stat column for the twins.

3. Gomez/Kubel/Cuddy.
  Is it real or just sample size? All 3 have stat lines that put them in the Hall of Fame this spring, so obviously they aren’t going to look like that in the season. But has Gomez taken great strides to using his talent? Has Kubel finally shaken the rust off to be the player we were expecting? Is Cuddy going to repeat 2006? The other possibility…. dun da dun…. is that a lot of pitchers are throwing fast-balls and these 3 tend to hit fast-balls well. Only the season will unfold the real truth, especially since we’re trying to make squeeze a melon out of a lime.

4. Young guys.
  Winfree .367/.533, Peterson .292/500, Hughes .429/.429, Martin .421/.526, Ramos .375/.500, and Valencia .429/.429 all had great results (most in brief stints). I think this is great for the young guys to come up and have success for players and Gardy (since he hates young people that aren’t dark and intimidating see Delmon Young vs. Jason Bartlett). I would be more enthusiastic about these results, but Ramos is the only one who showed any plate discipline with a 1:1 ratio. Its too bad I didn’t get to see the young guys play, since like many, I watch their stats all year and don’t get faces to put with the numbers. If only life was simpler, we’d all get to go down to Florida and rub shoulders with guys like Jayson Stark…... dreammm weaaava….

5. Pitching
  Perkins is our #1, followed by Blackburn, Slowey, Liriano and then Baker (lucky to break camp but has veteran presence now over everyone else). Ok, I’ll step out of Gardy’s world. If anything, it is encouraging to see Perkins throw well, even though this IS spring training, and Ramon Ortiz had a great spring a few years ago. Its a little tougher to look at a pitcher’s stats than hitter’s and try to make any assumptions. Pitchers tend to “work on” a lot of things, in other words they didn’t stay in very good shape and are trying to repeat a delivery. That’s fine, doesn’t bother me, just that I barely sneeze when a pitcher like Perkins has a good spring. What is a little on the B-Line is Scott Baker’s shaky spring. I’d like to see a little more progress from the guy that is supposed to be our rock for the year, but it’s only spring training right?

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Posted by BadSmerf on 03/30 at 07:08 PM
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BYTO Presents: Pat Neshek!

Minnesota Twins’ reliever Pat Neshek recently took some time to answer a few questions submitted by BYTO users. Neshek, a graduate of Park Center High School in Brooklyn Park, is currently rehabbing after undergoing Tommy John surgery in late 2008. He is known for his unusual delivery, vegetarianism, and his personal blog focusing on his career and passion for sports autographs.

BYTO: Where are you in your rehab?

Pat Neshek: Four months in, I’m about to begin the initial throwing phase which consist of throwing from 20-30 and 40 feet…My first bullpen is in September so you can get the feeling that it’s a slow process.

BYTO: When can we expect to see you whipping sidearm sliders and embarrassing right-handed hitters?

Pat Neshek: Most likely in Winter ball 2010 or in spring training…If you can’t wait pick up a PS3 or Wii console and run me out there!

BYTO: Taking money out of the equation, would you want to be a closer?

Pat Neshek: It’s not a goal or anything like that but I think I would do a good job in that role. I did it in the minors at every level and had success and I it was a ton of pressure but I think that’s when I do my best.

BYTO: Do you think that the best reliever on a team should be deployed in the structured manner that most managers stick to?

Pat Neshek: I think MLB closers should be expected to go 1.1, 1.2 & 2 innings a lot more, In the minors that’s how nearly every team did it and in the Majors I think it would benefit more teams if they used the closer in this fashion.

BYTO: That first big league check came. What did you purchase with it?

Pat Neshek: I was under the impression that I was making 1/13 (paid 13 times during the season) of 327,000 (minor league min in 06) which would = around 25,000…that was the case but I totally didn’t understand that taxes took about 1/2 and then there were tons of other expenses like clubhouse dues, mlbpa dues, tickets, that I left, soc security ect…I think my first check was for $10,500…I think I was the most pissed of guy in the clubhouse because I was expecting 30,000 haha…that brings up the next questions my first purchase was our house in Brooklyn Park. I wanted to put a lot of money down and I had some of my signing bonus from the 02 draft still so I figured to add that with the 25k…well I had to wait until my next check to get all the cash for the down payment…I just expected the checks to be around 30k a check…not even close haha.

BYTO: How much can Rick Anderson actually work with you, given your unusual delivery?

Pat Neshek: In 06 he really just let me pitch and didn’t say a word to me. Around mid 07 he saw me enough to know if I’m doing something that I usually don’t do. I’m a very independent pitcher and don’t like being molded into something if you guys can’t tell by my delivery so the less work with pitching coaches for me is usually good. Rick Anderson has helped me a lot though with my changeup & if I’m rushing or not letting my slider get out in front of me.

BYTO: Being one of the most internet-visible of the Twins, do you have any good stories involving web stalkers or general creepiness?

Pat Neshek: Hmmm not really, most people are really cool…a lot cooler than I would’ve ever imagined. I met Stephanee through my site in 2004 believe it or not…made a ton of friends with it but the creepiness just hasn’t been there much. We have an MLB security team to help out if any problems with any @$$holes come up & I used them to shut down a couple fakers using my name on Myspace & facebook but that’s about it.

BYTO: How many pitches can you see yourself realistically throwing in a game? Is there a cut-off on how many pitches you can throw before it impacts your availability for the next day?

Pat Neshek: Well in college I had 8 CGs and I threw 186 in my final college game a 1-0 9 inning shutout. I’m pretty durable if I get the right amount of rest, if I don’t get the day off every 3rd day I tend to break down. In the bigs they tend to watch relievers and pitch counts…If you throw under ten or around that mark you are good the next day. Around 15 is when they ask if you are good and over 20+ usually requires an off day. I’m good 2 out of 3 days but like I said above I need that 3rd day to do nothing…I thought my arm could take it because I was abused in the minors throwing everyday but it caught up to my elbow last year.

BYTO: You’re on the mound. Which hitter that you are facing makes you the most nervous?

Pat Neshek: A little slap hitting lefty that doesn’t k & is looking to slap to left or a righty that doesn’t k & that’s looking to shoot something to right field…The minor leagues are littered with those guys and in the big leagues it seems like they like Power so those guys never make it up.

BYTO: Just how dreamy is Joe Mauer in real life? Do you often get lost in his eyes when looking in from the mound?

Pat Neshek: You guy’s are sick…just sick. Interview over…jk He’s really quiet & a humble guy in real life…if he stays healthy he’s a def HOFer when his days are over.

BYTO: We know that you are a vegetarian, but have you ever fallen into the temptation of a juicy burger or a steak on a long road trip?

Pat Neshek: I haven’t had meat in nearly 14 months right now & I can live without meat for the rest of my life. It was tough at first but I never was a huge fan in the first place. I’ve actually pushed it one step ahead of no meat but no dairy like cheese, milk and all that stuff and also did that for about 14 months. I’ve had about 7-10 days though where there was nothing open and I had a cheese pizza. Availability of the stuff I eat is tough to find and you really need to plan ahead stuff to bring or places to eat.

BYTO: Which Twins’ reliever do feel battles his tail off the most?

Pat Neshek: I don’t know I would have to make a formula for tail battling…probably something that includes avg. with runners on…K’s in big situations and inherited runners stranded. I’m not sure who did the best last year in those categories but that would be my pick.

We would like to thank Pat for his answers and our posters for submitting the questions. Please visit Pat’s blog, “On the Road with Pat Neshek.”

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Posted by Klobs on 03/18 at 10:13 AM
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Opening Day Lineup Homunculi

As you can see, and as you'd probably imagine if you think about it, your fingertips and hands are the most sensitive parts of our body, your mouth and lips and tongue are also very sensitive, and things like your back and legs are the least sensitive. Think about how a tiny paper-cut on your finger tip hurts like hell while it'd take a big gash down the back of your leg to hurt as much. Anyways... what does this have to do with Twins baseball?

Well, maybe we can we look at the opening day lineup in a similar way? We can try; judge for yourself how useful you find the images below. To try to make some homunculi to represent the strengths and weaknesses of the guys we've got in our lineup I made this complicated-ass spreadsheet that took all the plate appearances for the players who I think we can expect to see in the starting line-up on opening day from any time they spent at AA, AAA and MLB and weighted them for the level at which they were. I didn't include Rookie or any type of A ball or College or foreign play since all that stuff is very difficult to figure out the value of; frankly I only used high minor league data since for players like Gomez and Casilla and Span, if you don't, you end up with barely any information you couldn't chalk up to random variation in a player's performance in a given year or sheer dumb luck last year.

After compiling the stats from The Baseball Cube, I then picked 5 factors representing a player's strengths and weaknesses to draw a Twins Homunculus, as well as how much experience a player has to include as a visual cue to whether the picture I drew comes from a guy who's played enough, especially in MLB, to establish that his average performance truly represents something about how good he is at various skills. The five skills I decided to pick were: how good a fielder a guy is; how well he hits for average; how well he hits for power as represented by his isolated power numbers (SLG-BA); how good he is at drawing walks and/or getting himself hit by pitches, which you could call a proxy for plate discipline (OBP-BA) and finally how good he is overall using OPS. How much experience they had was also used to modify the image if they are relative newbies... if they have less than 3000 weighted plate appearances then the player's experience is used to alter the images.

Then, I took the raw numbers (BA, OBP-BA, SLG-BA, etc.) and used them to compare how each guy in this lineup stacks up to the others (a guy who was exactly average for this line-up would look like the unmodified image) and basically arbitrarily generated numbers that were around one and had a range of about .5 to 1.5 to use to scale different parts of the player by those amounts (basically using any formula that gave a reasonable scalar) and then used a script in Photoshop to modify certain attributes of the image. The ways that the above mentioned attributes were used to generate a homunculus are as follows: his batting average made his protruding arm (on the right side of the image) bigger or smaller; his ability to hit for power was used to scale the bat he's holding; his plage discipline scaled his head; his fielding scaled his glove (and for Punto I made it look like he was holding it effeminately); and then finally, to give an overall judgment on the fielder, after those parts were scaled relatively, the homunculus was scaled once more so that the player as a whole would appear larger or smaller based on his OPS. If a guy was relatively inexperienced as defined above then he was made slightly less opaque so that he appears somewhat ephemeral... which is sort of a good way to think of these young kids who may or may not be the player their homunculus represents and who might not be in the line-up or even on the 25-man roster all year.

So, here's what I assume Gardy's going to put out on the field to start the year: Span, Casilla, Mauer, Cuddyer, Morneau, Crede, Kubel/Young, Punto, Gomez. Now, I don't know what he thinks of Crede versus Kubel and who he'll put higher up in the order, and if the value he puts on having righties hit after lefties will make him put Crede in front of Kubel for that purpose even if their raw numbers would tell you to put the guys in the other order. Also, this is assuming that he thinks Cuddyer is the same player he was in '06 and '07; I don't think he will be and I wouldn't bat him 4th, but what the hell do I know about veteran presence. I'd put Mauer second in the order with Cuddyer hitting more like 6th, Casilla hitting 7th and everybody else just bumped up, but it doesn't really matter, it's pretty clear that these guys will be the everyday players come opening day. Also, I am assuming that Young will pick up some ABs as the short straw in a DH platoon with Kubel against righties; their homunculi don't represent those splits, just their over all play. Keep in mind that these are not compared to league averages, but to one another, so don't panic tat Michael Cuddyer can't field worth a lick. Generating homunculi who are based on comparisons to league averages might be more revealing but this was more about seeing where the strengths and weaknesses are on the team, as opposed to trying to judge how they stack up to the league (they'd look pretty similar, anyways.) . By the way, the stat that a player's fielding ability is based on is is the Fielding Bible +/- per inning for the last 3 seasons (MLB only.) For Mauer, I looked at his rank as a catcher in terms of passed balls, wild pitches and runners thrown out, and used his MLB rank to approximate a number that was in line with how the other players' league ranks translated to their fielding numbers.

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Posted by TfinNJ on 03/15 at 11:15 AM
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