Long Streaks
This weekend's Cubs/Red Sox series should have been a thing of beauty for fans of either team - of which I'm a HUGE Cubs fan. I'm proud to say that I only watched one inning of this inter-league apostasy. Must Bud Selig ruin everything that is sacred with chincy marketing moves like interleague play for a whole MONTH!!! Sheesh.
The only reason that game was special is because of the shared agony both teams had since the early 20th century. Of course the Red Sox escaped their doldrums last year thus leaving the White Sox as the other team to share agony with the Cubs, but the Cubs and White Sox aren't good at sharing anything, especially the city of Chicago.
So I propose another team to share agony with the Cubs - The Twins.
"WHAT-WHAT-WHAT! The Twins have won it ALL twice in the last 20 years!!!" - my reasonable readers might exclaim. But the agony the Twins have, is in that same amount of time they have not had one hitter - NOT ONE - who has hit 30+ Home Runs. (Kent Hrbek slammed 34 in the 1987 season).
I submit that the Cub's 96 year championship drought and the Twins 18 years of no 30+ homer hitters are as statistically significant (without doing any math).
My friend Marty blames the lack of Twins power on the hitting coaches. He points to the drought but then makes the fallacy of saying a whole bunch of hitters who left the Twins went on to hit 30 HR's. There are exactly... one... one hitter who has left the Twins and gone on to hit 30+ HR - David Ortiz.
There are many perfectly good reasons why the Twins don't have a 30+ HR hitter.
*Small Budget - Guys who you can project 30+ HR's tend to be older veterans who demand multi-year, $10M+ contracts. The Twins haven't been giving these contracts out unless you've won 20+ games.
*Power, strength and HR's tend to come with age. The Twins rely on young sluggers who generally become free agents before they hit their power stride. Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones will probably support this statement in the near future as former Twins.
I thought I had Marty bested with those arguments - namely economics and the reality of a young, inexpensive team. However, I fell into the same fallacy trap - if David Ortiz is the ONLY player from the Twins system since 87 to hit 30+, maybe it IS the coaches.
So I thought I 'd take a look at some similar small market teams.
KC Royals - Only 2 home grown KC players have 30+ since '87. Danny Tartabul, who was actually brought up in the Seattle system, but was acquired very early in his career, had 31 in 1990 and Bo Jackson had 32 in 1989. Gary Gaetti, Jermaine Dye, Chili Davis, and Dean Palmer all had 30+ seasons in the 90's, but with the exception of Dye, these were all free agents. Dye was picked up early in his career from Atlanta, so he might be count as a Royal system success.
I'll also throw in Carlos Beltran who hit 38 HR last year between KC and Houston
Total # of hitters who hit 30+ from the KC system - Tartabul, Dye, Jackson, Beltran
Milwaukee Brewers: Jeromy Burnitz, Richie Sexson, John Jaha, Geoff Jenkins, Greg Vaughn all had 30+ for the Brewers. Burnitz came up as a Met, Sexson as an Indian, the last 3 are all true blue Brewers.
Cincinnati developed these three power hitters since '87 - Adam Dunn, Eric Davis, Barry Larkin (33HR in '92!)
Detroit - Bobby Higginson, Tony Clark
I tire of looking up old stats. This quick look shows that developing just a few power hitters is about par for the course. But let's not stray the course too much, just one power hitter stinks, but its not completely out of the question.
A bigger factor may be the steroid culture. There's been reports that some team's farm systems encourage steroid use unofficially. Looking the other way, comments such as "if only you had 25 more pounds of muscle on you..." and the like.
While the lack of Twins power could have come from crappy coaching, it is also plausible that it came from coaches who didn't permit a steroid culture to take root in the farm system.
For the time being, I'm going to assume the best about the Twins. There's no reason not to.
The only reason that game was special is because of the shared agony both teams had since the early 20th century. Of course the Red Sox escaped their doldrums last year thus leaving the White Sox as the other team to share agony with the Cubs, but the Cubs and White Sox aren't good at sharing anything, especially the city of Chicago.
So I propose another team to share agony with the Cubs - The Twins.
"WHAT-WHAT-WHAT! The Twins have won it ALL twice in the last 20 years!!!" - my reasonable readers might exclaim. But the agony the Twins have, is in that same amount of time they have not had one hitter - NOT ONE - who has hit 30+ Home Runs. (Kent Hrbek slammed 34 in the 1987 season).
I submit that the Cub's 96 year championship drought and the Twins 18 years of no 30+ homer hitters are as statistically significant (without doing any math).
My friend Marty blames the lack of Twins power on the hitting coaches. He points to the drought but then makes the fallacy of saying a whole bunch of hitters who left the Twins went on to hit 30 HR's. There are exactly... one... one hitter who has left the Twins and gone on to hit 30+ HR - David Ortiz.
There are many perfectly good reasons why the Twins don't have a 30+ HR hitter.
*Small Budget - Guys who you can project 30+ HR's tend to be older veterans who demand multi-year, $10M+ contracts. The Twins haven't been giving these contracts out unless you've won 20+ games.
*Power, strength and HR's tend to come with age. The Twins rely on young sluggers who generally become free agents before they hit their power stride. Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones will probably support this statement in the near future as former Twins.
I thought I had Marty bested with those arguments - namely economics and the reality of a young, inexpensive team. However, I fell into the same fallacy trap - if David Ortiz is the ONLY player from the Twins system since 87 to hit 30+, maybe it IS the coaches.
So I thought I 'd take a look at some similar small market teams.
KC Royals - Only 2 home grown KC players have 30+ since '87. Danny Tartabul, who was actually brought up in the Seattle system, but was acquired very early in his career, had 31 in 1990 and Bo Jackson had 32 in 1989. Gary Gaetti, Jermaine Dye, Chili Davis, and Dean Palmer all had 30+ seasons in the 90's, but with the exception of Dye, these were all free agents. Dye was picked up early in his career from Atlanta, so he might be count as a Royal system success.
I'll also throw in Carlos Beltran who hit 38 HR last year between KC and Houston
Total # of hitters who hit 30+ from the KC system - Tartabul, Dye, Jackson, Beltran
Milwaukee Brewers: Jeromy Burnitz, Richie Sexson, John Jaha, Geoff Jenkins, Greg Vaughn all had 30+ for the Brewers. Burnitz came up as a Met, Sexson as an Indian, the last 3 are all true blue Brewers.
Cincinnati developed these three power hitters since '87 - Adam Dunn, Eric Davis, Barry Larkin (33HR in '92!)
Detroit - Bobby Higginson, Tony Clark
I tire of looking up old stats. This quick look shows that developing just a few power hitters is about par for the course. But let's not stray the course too much, just one power hitter stinks, but its not completely out of the question.
A bigger factor may be the steroid culture. There's been reports that some team's farm systems encourage steroid use unofficially. Looking the other way, comments such as "if only you had 25 more pounds of muscle on you..." and the like.
While the lack of Twins power could have come from crappy coaching, it is also plausible that it came from coaches who didn't permit a steroid culture to take root in the farm system.
For the time being, I'm going to assume the best about the Twins. There's no reason not to.
posted by Bill Gilles | 10:31 AM
7 Comments:
You are in error in two ways, first, you set a line of 30+ HRs, not net increases in HRs. Also, you ignore other statistical measures of power like slugging percentage. You even ignore batting average.
if you do that, you add in Todd Walker as someone who has gained getting away from the Twins.
Bill-
The Twins haven't had a 30 HR hitter since '87 because they've had a bunch of crappy players. Even in their most recent run of success their "power position" hitters (1B, 3B, LF & RF) have all been relatively weak hitters.
Twins 1B since 1991 (based on most AB's at the position in a season):
- Hrbek (1992 - 1994). Herbie was on the tail end of his career during these years and on the receiving end of about 3 cheesburgers per day. He was an excellent player for about 8 seasons but during these last three he had lost most of his punch: his SLG% were .409, .467 and .420.
- Stahoviak (1995 - 1997). Stahoviak was a pretty punchless first basemen during an era in Twins History when most fans didn't even know that they were playing. His career high of 13 homeruns pretty much backs up my point that the Twins mostly just had crappy players during this era.
- Ortiz (1998). David Ortiz had more at-bats at 1B than any other Twin during 1998. He managed 9 homers. Ortiz has gone onto a brief period of success. And there might even be potential for his continued success if he manages to stay in Fenway's cozy dimensions. But in 1998 he was a crappy, akward 23 year-old.
- Ron Coomer (2000). Ron Coomer primarily played 3B as a Twin. In 2000 he had more at-bats then any other Twin at 1B and pretty much played league-average ball. More reinforcement, I feel, for my theory.
- Doug Mientkiewicz (1999, 2001 - 2004). As a 1B, Manwich was best known for his defense. He was an excellent defender and despite what some claim, I do think that his defense at 1B was honestly worth 5-10 runs per year more than a league average guy. But that hardly made up for his weak bat. He had a couple of slightly better than league average seasons (2001 & 2003), but in his others Minky was just plain stinky. Mietkiewicz's situation does reveal a institutional problem with the Twins however that might tell us a bit about their lack of power over the last 17 seasons: they too often preferred good hit, no bat players to some field, good bat players. I think that was the wrong philosophy, but could well have been the "small-market" strategy that they were going for.
You see similar trends in the other "power positions" throughout the last 17 seasons. A little Scott Leius, a little Rich Becker mixed in with some success with players like Corey Koskie. But my point remains the same: the Twins have had crappy players over the last 17 years not specifically because they were small market, but because they conciously tried to develop defense oriented players at the expense of their power numbers. It seems like a forumla that might finally have started to bear fruit in the Jones-Hunter-Koskie era, and mixed in with some pitching success has made for a playoff-caliber baseball team.
Marty,
Todd Walker doesn't help your case. He is the same hitter he's always been. His career high in HR? 17, most of which were hit while with the Rockies. HR high in MN? 12. Highest single season Avg? .316 in MN. He has spend the last few seasons just under .300. Same player he's always been.
As for not using slugging or batting average, I would argue that batting average is irrelevant to this analysis. Slugging is important, but not in the context of significanct 30+ HR drought that is unique to the Twins.
Geoff,
The Twins have developed guys with power who have projected to hit 30+ based on their power numbers as youngsters:
Torii Hunter - 27HR at age 26
Jacque Jones - 27HR at age 27
Corey Koskie - 26HR at age 28
Marty Cordova - 24HR at age 26
David Ortiz - 18 HR in 300 AB, age 26
But you make a good point - they have gone with players who tend to have glove and speed over power. I don't know if they actively picked those players over other prospects who exuded power potential - or if they had a choice at all based on poor drafts and Latin recruitment.
It could be that these fast, good defensive players were just the BEST players in the system and would have risen in any organizational philosophy.
Or again, it could be economics. OPS is far more expensive than speed and defense... unless your Brian Jordan.
My Brian Jordan?
I disagree, by the way, with your assertion that OPS is more expensive. This is what the Twins are paying their outfielders this season:
Hunter - $9 M
Jones - $5 M
Stewart - $6 M
Total - $20 M
None of those guys are big time power threats and none of them have been big time OPS contributors in their live. In fact, Shannon Stewart shouldn't fit into anybody's speed and defense philosophy since he has no useful speed and is a pretty medicore defender. Were there other options? Well, other than not paying these guys and getting their league average output elsewhere, not really. And the Twins were pretty unlucky that Jason Kubel blew out his knee as he surely would've been in RF this season in a platoon with Ford. The real problem with this strategy is that the Twins signed Hunter right after what will surely be his best season ever to a huge, 3-year deal. They had his arbitration seasons still available to see if he'd pan out. They signed Stewart after his "MVP-caliber" year to a 3-year deal despite having a much cheaper and essentially inter-changeable option available in Lew Ford. For a cash poor organization these are mentally poor decisions.
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