Twins Bullpen Has Been Awful

When the season started I looked at the bullpen and thought it would save us a lot of games, and with the increased importance of deep bullpens these days, it would really make us a reasonable team. Of course, baseball being the unpredictable game that it is, the starting pitching and offense turned out to be pretty great and the bullpen has been shaky at best. Early on it was strong, but recently no lead seems safe. Even Joe Nathan hasn’t been very good. I don’t know exactly what the bullpen’s problem has been, maybe being overworked early on, but I never would have anticipated such a huge downturn.

Since August 24, Twins starters have been 7-5 and relievers have been 1-10. If they had gone just 5-6, the Twins would be leading the Central right now by a game and a half. And by the way, that one win was in the second game of the doubleheader last weekend when Perkins just didn’t last the required five to qualify for the win. It’s just depressing how many leads have been thrown away recently. The last two games have been particularly painful. Yesterday they fought back from an 8-1 deficit to actually pull ahead 9-8, and as soon as they do Guardado gives up a homerun and we go on to lose in extras under the watch of Joe Nathan. Today they battle the best pitcher in the league this year and actually manage to tie the score up late and then the bullpen immediately gives the lead back. Hard to watch.

If the Twins want to have any chance at the playoffs, the bullpen needs to shape up immediately.

Thoughts on Hannahan

I’ve casually followed Jack Hannahan throughout the year based on a familial connection to him. He clearly hasn’t lit up the league, but he does seem to have a pretty nice swing and he plays solid defense. I went looking through his stats to see if I could uncover why he hasn’t had more success. Obviously there is no easy answer and it’s not like anyone is expecting him to be the next great third baseman, but I certainly think he’s more talented than his numbers show.

My best suggestion is that he should be more aggressive early in the count. Early this season he was walking a lot, which made for a pretty nice OBP, but since it’s peak of .402 in mid May it’s tumbled down 100 points. Perhaps he began relying more on the walk and as result ended up taking more pitches early in the count which he could have hit. I don’t know for sure, more research would certainly be required. What I do know is that he sees more pitches per plate appearance than almost everyone in the league. He’s eight in baseball with an average of 4.21. I typically look at that as a good thing, that he’s working the count and making the pitcher work, but the problem comes in in the fact that he’s not taking advantage when he gets in hitters counts. In counts of 3-0, 3-1, 2-0, and 2-1 he’s hitting only .212, but perhaps the problem is that only 12.8% of his at-bats are decided on those counts. Which tells me he’s continuing to take pitches, most of which end up as strikes, and thus let the pitcher back into the at-bat.  If you’re going to be a player that works the count and see a lot pitches, you need to be able to take advantage of those hitters counts, and it seems Hannahan just isn’t doing that.

The other reason I say he should be more aggressive early is due to the fact that he actually does quite well when he puts it in play early in the count. He’s batting .412 in counts of 0-0, 0-1, and 1-0 (and of the three the lowest is 1-0). So as much as I tend to like it when a hitter sees a lot of pitches, it’s not always the best strategy, especially when it seems to not be a style that suits the hitter. My suggestions may lead to a few less walks, but hopefully it will lead to a lot more hits and maybe a few less strikeouts as well.