Friday, April 18, 2008

Blame Kirby!?

(I posted my thoughts on the Thursday night Twins game, and the Twins minor league notes, earlier. To check them out, scroll down, or click here.)

It is being talked about more and more with each passing game. The Twins have hit just seven home runs in the season's first sixteen games. Kansas City has also hit seven homers, and Oakland has hit just six. The San Francisco Giants have hit seven homers as well, the only team in the National League with a number that low. Justin Morneau has hit four of the team's homers, and Jason Kubel has hit the other three.

In the past, it never really bothered me. The Twins always seemed to have guys that could hit a lot of doubles and they could score some runs. But to this point, it appears that the Twins could have an alarmingly few home runs. Getting Michael Cuddyer back and healthy will help. I happen to believe that Delmon Young will start hitting some home runs. I still am of the belief that Joe Mauer and Mike Lamb can each hit 12-15 homers this year. In other words, I'm not completely concerned that the Twins will not hit home runs all season.

However, this is a topic that I can't help but think about. Justin Morneau hit 30 or more homers the last two seasons. When he hit his 30th home run in the 2006 season, he was the first Twins hitter to do so since four of them did in 1987. I can't help but ask why. Here are a few reasons I've come up with, but your input would be greatly appreciated.

The Draft - The Twins draft pitchers and primarily they draft high school hitters. In this decade, they have drafted Joe Mauer, Denard Span, Matt Moses, Trevor Plouffe, Chris Parmelee and Ben Revere in the first round. All high school hitters. When drafting high school hitters, sometimes they turn out like Joe Mauer. Sometimes they turn out like BJ Garbe (I wanted to type Moses in there, but just in case that 2% chance that he could still break out comes through, I'm not going to). Chris Parmelee's hot start in 2008 is certainly promising, but Matt Moses hit well early in his career, when he was healthy. I happen to think that many times the top prospects are the high school phenoms (Uptons, Youngs, Griffey, many examples) but the more sure things are the college guys (Braun, Longoria, Tulowitski), but there are several examples of college guys that were sure-things that didn't pan out too (Mike Kelly, David McCarty). The draft is an imperfect science, that is for sure.
Player Development - How many power hitting prospects have come through the Twins minor league system in the last decade, or maybe two decades? Justin Morneau is one, and he has come through. Jason Kubel was one, and his injury four years ago cost him three years. He is starting to come back to that level. Who else? Who in the system right now would you consider a power hitter? Henry Sanchez gets hurt all the time. Matt Moses is just a big question mark. Will Danny Rams become a power hitter?
Pitching and Defense - It is a sound philosophy on several levels. If you develop and have quality pitching, they can keep you in games. If you don't give the other team outs, you can stay in the game. And then in the end, you just take your chance and see if you can sneak out a win. Let's be honest, that philosophy got the Twins to the playoffs four of the last six years while some teams that hit a lot of home runs (Rangers, etc.) haven't come close to the playoffs. Hitting is the 3rd or 4th priority, and it shows.
The Coaching - We were really tough on Scott Ullger as the team's hitting coach, and I think that was warranted. Joe Vavra's first year as hitting coach, the Twins had a great offensive year. Mauer was batting champ. Morneau was MVP. Torii Hunter finally made an adjustment. But 2007 wasn't a good offensive year. 2008 hasn't started out very well. I have no doubt that the hitting coaches have worked hard, but there do need to be results too.
The Adjustments - This one goes along with the coaching situation. I have found that there are times when a Twins player comes up and does well at first. But then the league adjusts to them. It is then the players job to re-adjust back to what the league's pitchers are doing to get them out. How many Twins prospects have not been able to do that? David McCarty? Scott Stahoviak? Michael Ryan? Lew Ford? Dustan Mohr?

THE KEY REASON

I'll call it the Blame Kirby philosophy. Kirby Puckett became a Hall of Famer by inside-outing pitches. He could take pitches off the inside corner at his knees and line them to right field. He could hit the right center field gap. As he got older, and got into his fourth and fifth seasons, he learned to start pulling the ball when necessary and hit for some more power. Also, Puckett was the definition of a hacker at the plate. He swung at pretty much everything, and still got hits. But Puckett was a great hitter who could hit home runs, not a home run hitter. I happen to think that there is some thinking that all hitters should pattern their game as similarly to Puckett's as they can. Let's not forget that because Puckett hit the ball very hard and low, he hit into a lot of double plays too!

Since Puckett's playing days, the Twins as an organization have focused their hitters on inside-outing the ball, hitting it the other way, slapping the ball. If you strike out too much, you aren't going to stay in the lineup. Hit the ball hard the other way, and you will be successful. Chuck Knoblauch used this philosophy to become one of the best 2B in the game for most of the '90s. Paul Molitor hit that way. Joe Mauer hits better when he is hitting the ball the other way.

Now, there is nothing wrong with the philosophy at all. It works for many players. But as Gardy likes to say, "We don't make robots." But they try to, at least with the hitters. You hear it almost daily/nightly from Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven. Look at Delmon Young's swing. He tries to hit pitches on the inside corner to right field. He's a natural hitter, so he can still get hits doing that, but how much fun would it be to see him anticipate the pitch on the inside corner, get it, and take a huge swing and see how far into the left field bleachers he can hit it?

Like Puckett, Young is a hacker. That isn't always a bad thing. Puckett, Alfonso Soriano, Vlad Guerrero there are plenty of examples of that being OK. But the Twins have not really appreciated the beauty of the walk. Matt Lawton used to get on base 38% of the time, even if he hit just .270, and he was under appreciated. David Ortiz took walks. The Twins encourage aggressiveness. Now, in reality, I don't have a problem with that, but I also don't want the team to encourage Joe Mauer to start swinging more. Bobby Kielty was never really given a good shot at regular playing time with the Twins because he was so patient at the plate. The 2008 Twins team not only has very few home runs, they are dead last in the league in drawings walks. Think about that... poor on-base percentage and no power. That is a horrible combination.

Back to Ortiz, he's the perfect example of a guy who was held back by the Twins hitting philosophy. Tom Kelly wanted him to slap the ball to left field for singles. What happened when Ortiz went to Boston and was allowed to just swing hard? He became one of the most feared hitters in baseball. And he knew why. And he told people why. As he said in an interview, "The Twins wanted me to swing like a (expletive)." That is the Twins philosophy.

Another example is Torii Hunter. He was told by Kelly (and let's be honest, Gardy is an extension of Tom Kelly) to hit the ball the other way, just like Kirby did. Once Hunter started just swinging more aggressively, the home runs came, and what we found is that he didn't have to sacrifice batting average to add the power. Hunter loves bashing Tom Kelly any chance he gets.

Justin Morneau may take a few big swings and miss, maybe even miss badly, but I like that sometimes he is trying to give the Twins some quick runs. Jason Kubel has flown out to the warning track several times already this year to go with his three homers. Getting out is never a great thing, but I like the fact that Kubel is taking some good at bats, and when he swings, he is swinging hard with the goal of hitting it a long way.

Kirby Puckett was one of those once in a lifetime types of players (of which there are apparently many). He became a Hall of Famer by swinging at everything, getting a lot of hits to the opposite field, and eventually learning to hit for some power. His success with Tom Kelly as manager led to, I believe, a thought that that is the type of hitter everyone should be. Again, not a bad thing. Shane Mack had a few very solid years living by that thinking. But in today's game, there has to be a power factor, a few guys in a lineup that can hit a home run at any time. Do the Twins have that? I think they've got about six guys that could hit 15 or more homers, and that would be good. But outside of Justin Morneau, they really don't have any hitter that strikes fear in the opposition at this time.

The scary thing is, there aren't really any of those types of hitters in the Twins system either, unless Chris Parmelee keeps crushing the ball the way he is right now.

What do you think? Am I off base? Do you think there are other situations in place that have kept the Twins from being a team known for power hitting for the last 20 years?

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