The Twins offense is (still) a wrecking machine and a deep dive into Corbin Burnes' outing
Who knows if the season will be canceled, but if you're into screenshots and slider GIFs, well, do we have the newsletter edition for you.
Things went pretty well for the Twins (save for guys named Zack Littell and Devin Smeltzer) as the MLB season finally kicked off this weekend.
Things did not go so hot for the Brewers, who dropped two of three at Wrigley.
No matter the results, though, the last three days have been filled with Major League Baseball on the TV or radio, the center of attention at times and, at others, am ambient backdrop. Even with no fans in the stands (sorry, Fox, your virtual spectators who were decked out in outdated Brewers apparel don’t count), it finally feels like summer.
So, naturally, it would only follow that the season would be in serious jeopardy as soon as we were set to publish this edition after nearly half of the Marlins tested positive for COVID-19.
As of now, nothing has been canceled, so let’s go ahead and review some of the first weekend’s action.
Let’s converse, rich people.
Tommy D’s weekly hot garbage
~Tom
Get ready, world. I purchased MLB TV for the first time
In a year of continuous poor personal health and financial decisions, I coughed up another $25 per month for MLB TV. I’ve been able to watch the Twins and Brewers for free the past three seasons thanks to my full-time gig, but I wanted to be able to watch the Royals take on the Tigers in the AL Central Toilet Bowl without putting my computer in jeopardy with 17 viruses on an MLB reddit stream. Speaking of toilets, MLB TV has totally transformed my Throne Experience. I haven’t enjoyed pooping this much since my college days when I was addicted to Boom Beach. Remember that game? If Clash of Clans was Mike Trout, Boom Beach was, oh I don’t know, Bobby Kielty. But I loved it. Anyway, three straight days of MLB TV has been wonderful.
So now I’m a #screengrab guy.
My 395 Twitter followers beware: The screengrabs are coming. It’s really a level of Twitter I’ve always been inspired to reach -- grabbing a freeze frame of something I thought was funny from a baseball game, tweeting it out with a goofy caption, realizing my caption wasn’t funny five minutes later and then deleting my Twitter app. Next Twitter goal: Becoming a K-Pop stan account.
Here are two jersey appreciation screengrabs.
I am #AllIn on Washington’s gold-trimmed uniforms. Beauties.
I am also #AllIn on San Diego’s rebrand to its rebrand (as well as Austin Hedges’ groundbreaking Deep V.)
Hearing Joe Buck’s voice again warms my heart
I said it. Young Buck was on the call of the Nationals-Yankees game Saturday night. It soothed me. For a few minutes, I was living in a pandemic-free world with no worries aside from complaining about a broadcaster’s obsession with Aaron Judge. (For the record, I do like Buck a lot. He’s very self aware and self deprecating -- two qualities I appreciate in a human. Read his autobiography Lucky Bastard and you’ll agree.)
Max Kepler batting eighth is hilarious
Following Kepler’s two-bomba performance in the season opener, manager Rocco Baldelli slotted every female’s favorite outfielder in the No. 8 spot the next day. Yes, the Twins were facing a lefty (Dallas Keuchel), so Kepler always slides down the order even though he finally figured out how to hit against southpaws last summer (.293/.356/.524 slash). At first glance, batting Kepler eighth seems preposterous. But who would you move down the order against a lefty? Garver-Donaldson-Cruz? Heck no. Polanco? Nah. Sano? No way. Rosario? Nope. Gonzalez? … Probably. It just goes to show you how freaking ridiculous this Twins lineup is.
Luis Arraez batting ninth is almost more hilarious
Minnesota has a guy on its roster that has a legitimate chance to win the AL batting crown and here he is, on opening day, batting ninth. LOL. THIS LINEUP IS TOO GOOD.
The Padres might be my second-favorite NL team
Behind the Crew, of course. Say what you want about Manny Machado, but his choice to not care about winning and instead take $300 million to be “forced” to live in San Diego year round is a brilliant life move. I respect the heck out of it.
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Random player you should know: Dinelson Lamet
MLB dOesN’T kNoW hoW TO MaRKeT iTs plAyERs. I, Tom, am here to change that. Every week (or, since you pay exactly $0.00 for this newsletter and have little to no expectations, it’ll be more like when I feel like it but for now we’ll say every week), I’ll scour MLB rosters and educate our trusted readers about a player everyone should know about. We’ll begin with San Diego Padres right-hander Dinelson Lamet.
Or the Big Dino, as I like to call him. (Even though you pronounce his first name dee-NEL-sun.) Recognize the name? Probably because you’re a loyal RPC reader and noticed I chose him as my darkhorse pick to win the NL Cy Young.
Even though he always whiffed a good amount of hitters, Lamet was never a prospect that had the Billy Beans of the world drooling. He quietly debuted in 2017 and made enough of an impression to be named to the starting rotation of a terrible Padres team in 2018. But then, heartbreak. Lamet suffered an elbow injury and underwent Tommy John surgery. He finally made his return to the Dads in July 2019 and was back to his typical strikeout-happy self (12.9 K/9). But this time, with a twist. Always a two-pitch chucker with a fastball and slider, Lamet started throwing his slider two different ways to keep hitters guessing. And guess what? They were baffled. Lamet’s new pitch, which Baseball Savant labeled a curveball, whiffed hitters 48.3% of the time in 2019. Opponents batted just .105 against it. That’s unfair.
Congrats. Now you know another MLB player!
Corbin Burnes’ start was….good??
~Curt
For those who have already purchased their one-way ticket on the Corbin Burnes Express, a locomotive that will either dazzle or crash and burn with little room for anything in between, Saturday was a glimpse into what could be.
Burnes delivered the best start of his Major League career (although that bar has been set very low) in the Brewers lone victory this weekend in Chicago. A high pitch count in addition to a lack of being fully stretched out yet led to the following line: 3.1 innings, 2 hits, 1 run, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts.
Let’s go beyond that line and see why the Brewers organization and fans should walk away excited from what they saw.
The slider
One of the most consistently head-pounding things on a broadcast that is normally otherwise very excellent is Brewers color commentator Bill Schroeder mentioning how Burnes’ slider was the biggest factor in his 2019 demise; this just isn’t the case. Whereas FanGraphs weighs Burnes’ slider as being worth 4.5 runs above average last year, his fastball was worth -18.7 runs despite throwing just 49 innings. We’ll get into that offering later.
Burnes, even in a season that was nothing short of disastrous, still had a 35.9 percent whiff rate on his slider last year. It’s a pitch that ranked in the 95th percentile of all slider in terms of spin rate. Mix it in with a well-located high-spin fastball and it should be successful.
Unfortunately, Baseball Savant doesn’t have pitch data from Saturday’s game uploaded as of Sunday night when I’m writing this, so we can’t see the spin rate on the delivery just yet.
Burnes came out looking largely to establish his four-seam, a task that did not go so well, which we’ll get to later. The saving grace was his secondary stuff.
Burnes threw only four sliders of his 24 pitches in the inning, largely, because he primarily throws it to right-handers but had to face Rizzo and Heyward, but saw good results: two swinging strikes, including a strikeout of Kris Bryant. In all reality, it should have been three swinging strikes, as he got Willson Contreras to go around on a two-strike offering that would have ended the inning, but first base umpire John Tumpane thought otherwise.
(And the Contreras should-have-been-strike).
Facing three of four lefties in the second, Burnes didn’t throw a single slider, instead mixing in a heavy cutter/changeup mix.
Finally tasked with a righty, Burnes was at his most dominant of the afternoon against Javy Baez, who is probably the Cubs hitter least built to face a guy like Burnes. Just watch these sliders.
After walking Kyle Schwarber, another lefty, following a tough battle, Burnes was back in his comfort zone again and throwing decimating sliders to a righty in Contreras.
This first pitch to Contreras, a delivery that is easy to pay no attention to, is one of the couple of pitches that most caught my eye from Burnes’ start.
At first glance, that sort of looks like nothing but a hanging slider, right? And, I mean, it kinda is--an 86 mph spinner that sits middle-up.
But, either Contreras was taking the whole way or was caught off-guard. And judging by the way the Cubs catcher loads, shuffles his after and, generally speaking, attacks at the plate, I’m going to assume he wasn’t taking all the way. Burnes misses his spot by a good five inches, but looks like he has Contreras leaning out over the plate, fools him and sneaks in an stolen first strike. That’s how the slider and fastball can play off each other. Two pitches later, the relationship between those pitches flipped and Burnes’ first two sliders of the at-bat (as well as against other righties on the day) had Contreras sitting out over the plate and in swing mode. By the time a 96 mph four-seam came sizzling in on his hands, it was too late. He was already committed.
Then, one pitch later, Burnes goes back outside with some picturesque sequencing.
Burnes finished the day with 75 pitches, only 11 of which were sliders. But six of his 11 swinging strikes came on the slide piece; three came on the four-seam and two apiece came on the curve and changeup. None of the sliders were put in play, which can be critical for Burnes. Last year, 35.48 percent of in-play sliders were line drives, even though it was his best pitch.
Another thing to keep an eye on is the fact that Burnes also threw no sliders against left-handers. Historically, he drops his slider usage against lefties significantly (40 to 18 percent), but to throw no sliders out of 51 pitches seems far too few to be simply a coincidence.
Fastball command
The fastball is always--and I mean always--Burnes’ bugaboo. It’s in the 99th percentile in terms of spin rate, yet got devoured last year like the pregame spread when both CC Sabathia and Prince Fielder were on the team.
Opponents slugged .823 against Burnes’ fastball in 2019, by far the highest mark of any pitcher with at least 400 four-seams thrown. The next guy on the list is now pitching in Korea. Never before have I seen a pitcher deserve a ghastly-high HR/FB in the way that Burnes did. A coworker and I dubbed it Corbin Burnes Airlines.
If you’ve watched even one Burnes start with any level of interest in why one of the highest-spin fastballs in the game has been one of the worst, it’s not very hard to figure it out. It’s location.
Compare Burnes’ four-seam heat map from 2019...
...with one of the best fastball-throwers in baseball, Josh Hader.
Burnes’ proclivity to throw a high-spin fastball, which plays up in the upper parts of the zone, low, has been confounding to watch and leads to the follow-up question of “is it Burnes, the catcher, the coaching or all the above?” That we won’t get to today.
So, how well did Burnes avoid those low fastballs that tend to get pounded on Saturday? Better, I guess.
Burnes was by no means pounding the upper third of the zone and higher, but he wasn’t living purely thigh-down like we saw in 2019.
Now, don’t get this confused with Burnes having good command of the fastball because, um, he had about as much of an idea where it was headed as you and I did at times.
Take, for example, the only run-scoring hit against him all day, Contreras’ RBI single in the first.
Here’s where Omar Narvaez set up...
...and here’s where it leaked right over the middle of the dish.
Oof. Now, if that pitch is called for Narvaez to be at the letters instead of the thigh, does Contreras catch up to 96? Possibly. But, on the other hand, if Burnes hits the spot, it’s unlikely Contreras is going to do much with it.
The armside miss was a common theme for Burnes’ four-seam against the Cubs. Take the first inning at-bat against Rizzo.
Armside misses directly led to two of Burnes’ three walks, which was probably his biggest issue of the day. (The other walk, a second inning pass to Ian Happ, actually featured what I thought were some really good changeups that he laid off).
The fact that Burnes’ fastball command was so shaky all afternoon makes it even more humorous that the Cubs decided they were going to have a problem with some pitches running inside.
I….I don’t think Burnes meant to put runners on first and second for the cleanup hitter in the first inning, Javy.
Burnes’ success will ultimately come down more to how he performs with that high-spin heater than any other pitch. Saturday was a step forward, but the volatility is still a concern.
Other notes
The Cubs put only six balls into play and none of them were “barrels”, per Statcast.
Here’s the breakdown of first pitch usage. (Wasn’t available on Brooks Baseball, so take a small grain of salt for human error as I charted these). 7 four-seams, four curves, three sliders, two cutters. Against righties, he threw three first-pitch sliders to two fastballs and one curve. The cutter was a common delivery to lefties.
Burnes became the first pitcher in Brewers history to throw less than four innings in a start while striking out at least six and allowing fewer than four runs.
Burnes gave up 15 extra-base hits in 17.2 innings over four starts last year. The Cubs had none on Saturday.
Brooks Baseball logs Burnes as having thrown 39 changes all of last season. He threw 15 against Chicago, all of which were to lefties. The average velocity on the pitch was down from 91 to 87.8 mph.
Let’s overreact to some stuff
~Jake
OK, nobody panic, but we’re already five percent of the way through the season.
Well, maybe panic a little bit.
It happened so quickly and there’s nothing we can do but overreact rashly and have hot takes based on small samples. It’s what we do best here, honestly.
The crazy thing, though, is that our reactions may not be overreactions after just three games. Normally, we could look past a series loss to the Cubs or look past Zack Littell’s horrible outing. But, again, we’re already five percent of the way through the season! Double that and we’re 10% of the way through! Triple that and...omg I can’t breathe.
Let’s react.
Corbin Burnes could be in for a long season
The line wasn’t that bad. The fireballer started and threw 3-1/3 innings in the Crew’s second game of the year, allowing just one run on two hits while striking out six.
It felt worse though, right? Well, depends who you ask.
Curt picked Burnes as the person he was most dangerously optimistic about and thought Saturday's outing was, all things considered, a relative success. That makes sense. He’s wildly talented and showed excellent flashes on Saturday. Not everyone strikes out six Cubs in 3-1/3 innings.
With those strikeouts, though, came the walks. He gave up three free passes, including a four-pitch walk to Anthony Rizzo which he followed up by hitting Javy Baez.
Burnes was electric at times and utterly lost at others. When he missed the zone, he was nowhere near it.
In just 75 pitches, we saw the ups and downs of Corbin Burnes. He’ll probably get over it but we have to overreact here. That’s literally the point of this.
Eric Lauer is the next Andrew Miller
Forget Eric Lauer, the starter. Enter Lauer, the bullpen ace.
The former Friar came off the Injured List on Sunday and, hours later, looked outstanding in his first outing. He entered an otherwise dreary 9-1 loss against the Cubs and dealt, striking out six batters and allowing just one hit in 2-2/3 innings of work. It’s the most strikeouts in a Brewers relief debut since Darren Holmes in 1991 (which is perhaps the best random #nugget we’ve had on here yet).
His fastball was playing up in relief, jumping to 94-95 at times, and with the topsy-turvy, almost sidewinder delivery, he looked like a slightly less electrifying Andrew Miller. Not bad!
Luis Robert is the next Miguel Cabrera
The White Sox pitching staff looked horrendous but the real takeaway for the Southsiders is the legend in the making that is Luis Robert.
In a total blowout Sunday, LuBob absolutely crushed a Kenta Maeda pitch to dead center, spoiling an otherwise excellent debut.
It wasn’t just that homer either. He went 4-for-11 with a double and a homer in the series, looked excellent defensively and just screamed superstar in all three games.
For the Twins, it’s just a snapshot of what they’ll have to deal with for the next decade or so. They already have Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez to compete with, and Robert entering the mix is just not what you want.
Nelly Cruz will have the best 60-game stretch by a Twin
The best 60-game stretch by a Twin was probably Justin Morneau, who went bonkers and posted a 216 wRC+, the 32nd-best mark in baseball history, during a 60-game stretch in 2010. As part of that stretch, Morneau slashed .372/.483/.691 and smacked 16 bombs. Pretty good stuff.
With all due respect to Morenau, arguably the best Twins color person these days(?), Nelson Cruz is going to do that and more this year. I mean, did you see him this weekend?!
The 40-year-old went 7-for-14 with two doubles and three homers. RBIs are a dumb stat but also he drove in 10 runs in just three games! It’s just three games, but that’s a 451 wRC+. That’s a bit higher than Morneau’s 2010 season.
Twins will lead the league in runs scored
This team is so much fun. It was 9-0 after the second inning in Sunday’s series finale and it felt like it could just go on forever. The Twins clobbered the White Sox 14-2 Sunday and that wasn’t even their only lopsided game. In fact, all three games were pretty lopsided, but we don’t talk about the second game.
Minnesota torched the White Sox for 26 runs in those three games. The next closest is the Dodgers with 22 runs, and they played four games.
I know you might be thinking, “Big deal, they led the league in runs last year, too.” But they didn’t! They smacked a record number of dingers last year but actually finished second to the Yankees by four runs last year. The Twins were certainly favored to be near the league lead in runs scored, and now they have a four-run buffer.
The lineup is just too good. You have Luis Arraez batting ninth and Max Kepler batted eighth the other day. How do pitchers stop that?