Pair of Minnesota Twins are buying into the flyball revolution
The Minnesota Twins have had a rough year. However, Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar are breaking out by adding launch to their games.
The Minnesota Twins are having somewhat of a disappointing 2018 season. After shocking the world and grabbing the second AL Wild Card last year, the expectation was that the team would be competitive for the same spot this year.
Despite bringing in reinforcements to the Cinderella ’17 squad (Logan Morrison, Jake Odorizzi, Lance Lynn and Fernando Rodney), the Twins boast a 32-37 record, 5 and 1/2 games out of first, and have just a 6.7 percent chance of making the playoffs, per Fangraphs Playoff Odds.
They have not been particularly skilled on either side of the ball, although their offense has been more of the problem than anything. This has been the biggest story for the Twins, which were carried by their offense last season.
In fact, they posted the 6th-best wRC+ in all of baseball at 102 in 2017. This season has been a considerable departure, cratering to a team wRC+ of 94 (18th in MLB).
The drop has been very precipitous for the Twins. It is especially frustrating because they did not subtract any of their main pieces in the offseason. This fall has been driven by underperformance from players who were supposed to better than they are playing.
Brian Dozier has provided the Minnesota Twins with stability.
In a contract year, Brian Dozier, a staple in the lineup for years, has been a below-average hitter. Free-agent acquisition Logan Morrison has been extremely unproductive since joining the team. He’s become a shell of the player who enjoyed a breakout season with the Tampa Bay Rays last year.
Moreover, core pieces such as Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano have just wholly been liabilities in 2018. Both have composed negative-fWAR seasons, and the latter has been demoted to Triple-A. Buxton, meanwhile, has dealt with injuries issue for the majority of the year but has been horrible when he has been in the lineup.
Robbie Grossman, who was decent before, has been one of the worst players in all of baseball. Minnesota is also in the conversation with the Boston Red Sox and Washington Nationals for having the least amount of production at the catcher position.
Blaming the Twins for this decline in offensive performance is a tough sell to make. It is remarkable they have been plagued by this much negative regression from players who were supposed to be impactful pieces.
Honestly, the fact that they are not worse is sort of surprising. Four of their best players have significantly underperformed. If it were not for the two Ed’s, Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar, this lineup would have been one of the most punchless in the league.
Starting with Rosario, he is currently in the midst of one of the best seasons in baseball. His 3.1 fWAR in 2018 places him 9th in the entire league, ahead of big names like Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado, and Kris Bryant.
His slash line reads an appetizing .316 AVG/.354 OBP/.571 SLG in 292 plate appearances, coupled with incredible baserunning. He had a very solid 2017 season but has taken his game to a whole other level in this one.
With Eduardo Escobar, we have a switch-hitter whose power surge entirely came out of nowhere. His previous high in ISO (isolated power) was .191, which he compiled last year. This season, though, he has ramped his ISO all the way up to an astonishing .281.
He ranks 7th in all of baseball (among qualifiers) in this category. The bewildering thing is he essentially has hit for more power this year than Aaron Judge, who possesses a .278 ISO. He is also 17th in baseball in fWAR (2.5) and 10th in wRC+ (150).
Escobar’s offensive success is more shocking than Rosario’s, but both still are breaking out incredibly. They have reached power levels that no one could have ever expected them to reach. The interesting aspect of this is they have essentially improved themselves by doing the same exact thing. Escobar and Rosario are buying into the flyball revolution.
Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar are bringing a flyball revolution to the Minnesota Twins.
The flyball revolution, for those unaware, is a movement by certain hitters to add more launch to their swings. Essentially, they are trying to hit the ball in the air (where they can do more damage) and fewer on the ground.
Escobar has gradually bought into the approach. It used to be he was a batter hitting more groundballs than flyballs. He started trending the other way in 2015, doing so slowly at first and then changing his swing for good. In 2016, his GB/FB (groundball to flyball ratio) was 1.05, with slightly more groundballs than flyballs.
The next year he brought it down considerably with a 0.79 GB/FB. The results were not overwhelming, though, and he only added a tad more power. This year, however, he has brought his GB/FB down to 0.59, which is the 5th-“best” in baseball. As previously stated, the power has been there like never before.
Like his teammate, Rosario has hit demonstrably more flyballs and fewer groundballs this season. In 2017, he ran a 1.13 GB/FB, which pales in comparison to the 0.69 GB/FB he has produced in 2018. For the record, his GB/FB this year is 10th in baseball.
Both Twins have seen an enormous spike in hard contact percentage (Hard%) and a drop in soft contact percentage (Soft%). Their results with the bat have drastically improved, and it is safe to say their change in batted-ball outcomes is the reason why.
While these guys are the poster-boys of success with adding launch, the Twins as a whole seem to be embracing the flyball revolution philosophy. Last season, Minnesota ranked 27th in GB/FB at 1.11, meaning they hit more fly balls and fewer ground balls than most teams.
In 2018, they have hit even more balls in the air, placing last in the MLB in GB/FB at 0.95. They are the only team in baseball with more flyballs than groundballs this year.
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It is no secret that Rosario and Escobar are drivers of this strategy for the organization. Their efforts to hit more balls in the air have bred tremendous success.
It has not been a great year to be a Minnesota Twins fan, but it has to be a pleasure to watch these guys play at elite-levels with their revamped approaches.