Alex Presley and the stolen base

Alex Presley has been a fixture in center field since
joining the Twins in the Justin Morneau trade.

Alex Presley went 1-for-5 Friday night, which lowered his batting average with the Twins to .348. OK, it's just 23 official at-bats, and if he were really that good he would have forced his way into the Pirates lineup years ago, but his minor league numbers suggest that he might be a reasonable major league leadoff hitter.

This is the optimistic case for Presley: He gets on base, or at least he has in the high minors. (His on-base percentages in A ball are markedly lower than in Double A or Triple A). He doesn't have the power one wants from a corner outfielder, and he's been stuck behind Andrew McCutcheon for the Pirates center field job, and (again, the optimistic case) that's why he is 28 and hasn't cracked a regular lineup.

Optimism aside, Presley is viewed more as a reserve outfielder than as a possible quality regular. We saw an example Friday of why he's not destined to be a quality leadoff hitter.

Presley was on first base with one out in the ninth inning with Ryan Doumit pinch-hitting and the Twins down a run. When the count went to 3-2, Ron Gardenhire had Presley go. Doumit struck out, and Presley was thrown out easily.

Thrown out, it should be noted, by J.P. Arencibia, who came into the game, according to Baseball Reference, having thrown out just 24 percent of base stealers. Of the 17 qualifying catchers, Arencibia ranked 14th in throwing out base stealers.

Presley is 0-for-3 as a base stealer since joining the Twins. He was 0-for-1 with Pittsburgh. His minor league track record as a base stealer is unimpressive.

Some players are fast but simply can't get the jumps needed to steal bases effectively. Presley appears to be one such.

Seats no doubt available

The Twins today open one of their longer homestands of the year (nine games in 10 days). They do so with Justin Morneau no longer on the team and Joe Mauer on the shelf indefinitely.

September is generally a rough month for also-rans in terms of actual attendance, by which I mean bodies in the seats as opposed to tickets sold. School's back in session, the evenings start getting chillier. And in the case of the also-ran 2013 Twins, the two biggest names aren't there.

It is true that neither the Twins nor this weekend's visitors, the Toronto Blue Jays, will reach the postseason; it is also true that Toronto's biggest star, Jose Bautista, is out for the season. Still, I reject the cliche of "nothing to play for" and "meaningless games." The Minnesota lineups this weekend figure to be filled with unfamiliar names, but the novices and newcomers are playing, in a sense, for their futures, to make a good impression and enhance their chances of sticking in the majors.

The games are still worth the playing and the watching. But I'd believe that regardless; I'd rather watch a minor league game than any NFL game ever played. Certainly the casual fan's interest is going to be down. So expect to plenty of vacant seats at Target Field for these September games.

The Twins schedule this year was a mess from the beginning. Thirty-one of the 81 home dates — 38 percent — were in April and September, which one can pretty much guarantee will be the two worst months for weather. They had nine home games scheduled for the entire month of July.

If it's any consolation (and it probably isn't), nobody was happy with the schedule this year, and the players union reportedly is making an issue of it with the commissioner's office. The union's concern isn't about the bad-weather heavy Minnesota schedule, of course; it's unhappy with the bizarre travel demands put on the players.

Josmil Pinto and the base on balls

Josmil Pinto collects a pinch-hit single Wednesday.

Josmil Pinto has been a line-drive machine for the Twins. Not that 11 major league plate appearances, most of them coming against the lowly Houston Astros, proves anything, but it fits his minor league track record.

He hits. There are questions about his defensive abilities behind the plate, but he will hit.

His Baseball Reference page this morning is amusing. One of B-R's features is a 162-game average, showing what a player's rates translate to for a full season. Pinto's shows 108 doubles and a .700 batting average. These would be records. It also shows 162 runs but just 54 RBIs, a combination that if it were to actually occur would come from a slap-hitting leadoff man, not a ponderous catcher.

Just another illustration of the deceptiveness of small samples, and this is a very small sample.

Pinto has drawn one walk so far with the Twins. Here's an oddity from his minor league numbers: Most years, he drew about one walk for every 10 plate appearances (which, coincidentally, roughly matches his current MLB walk rate). This year, at Double A New Britain, he shot up from walking 10 percent of the time to 14 percent.

Then he moved up to Triple A Rochester. The batting average and slugging percentages remained stable — Pinto hit .308 in Double A, .314 in Triple A; he slugged .482 in Double A, .486 in Triple A.

But the walks just disappeared. Seventy-five plate appearances for the Red Wings, just two bases on balls. That's not a lot of playing time, but the results are so extreme that they might be significant.

Or not.

Pinto has not appeared to be an impatient hitter with the Twins. He's averaging 4.55 pitches per plate appearance, well over the major league average. He hasn't swung at a first pitch yet.

Why his walks shot up in New Britain, and why they vanished in Triple A ... it's a curious thing.

Catchers masks and concussions

Joe Mauer blocks a ball in a spring training
drill. The metal in his face mask is
titanium — stronger than steel, but also
less absorbant.

Mike Bernardino on Tuesday published this piece posing the intriguing question: Is the growing popularity of titanium catchers masks linked to the rash of foul-tip concussions?

My immediate reaction was to doubt the entire premise. It seemed likely to me that we're merely more aware of catcher concussions, not that we're actually seeing more concussions.

But then I started thinking about the physics involved. Titantium is stronger than steel, so it doesn't bend as much when a ball smashes into it. It's also considerably lighter — which makes titanium masks more comfortable— which lessens the resistance to the force.

It's important to realize that it isn't the impact itself that causes most concussions — it's the movement that results from the impact. The brain floats inside the fluid-filled skull. The head is hit at one place, causing the head to move with the force of the blow. The brain remains relatively stable, but the skull crashes into it from the movement. That's where the injury occurs.

If indeed the steel masks absorb more of the blow without transferring it to the head, then yes, the titanium masks are more of a risk to the wearer.

According to Bernadino, both Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit were wearing titanium masks when they sustained their concussions. So was Alex Avila of the Detroit Tigers, who has reportedly returned to wearing steel now that he's back in in the lineup.

Certainly the lighter weight of the titanium masks is an attractive feature. But the ultimate purpose of the face mask is to protect the wearer. Titanium certainly does a fine job of protecting the wearer from the ball itself.  It may not be adequate in protecting the wearer from the force of the ball — and that's no small concern.

Who's the decider?

Joe Mauer's concussion has revived the speculation
about a position switch — and the departure of Justin
Morneau opens first base.

I certainly can't claim to have heard everything Terry Ryan has said in his myriad interviews during the past week.

But I've heard enough to draw this inference: The Twins still view Joe Mauer as a primary-position catcher, and they won't change that view until Mauer tells them he thinks he should switch.

I hope that overstates the case. Ryan is hardly likely to announce a Mauer position switch without the player signing off on it first. Even if the consensus of the entire brain trust believes this is the time to move Mauer to a less rigorous position, the move would need the player's buy-in to be effective.

But if the team is indeed going to wait for Mauer to take the initiative, that seems to me a mistake. Players are generally the last to acknowledge the deterioration of their skills, at least for public consumption.

And make no mistake: when Mauer becomes a full-time first baseman, or right fielder, or whatever position he moves to when he moves away from catcher, it will be an acknowledgement that baseball's most physically challenging position is eating away at Mauer's ability.

As I see it, there's still a logical case to be make to keeping Mauer behind the plate. There's also a logical case to be made for moving him now. I've always come down in the past on the side of Mauer as a catcher. Today, I'm not sure which is the wiser decision.

And Mauer certainly has a role to play in making that decision. But it can't be his alone.

---

Here, by the way, is the link to my Monday print column on the Morneau trade.

The minor league vets

Alex Presley, acquired from Pittsburgh for Justin Morneau,
had three singles in his Twins debut.

The Twins' starting lineup Sunday had just one player (Brian Dozier) who hadn't seen some time in the International League this year. (Josh Willingham and Trevor Plouffe were there on rehab assignments.)

And yet it wasn't a truly young lineup. It was mainly minor league veterans.

Rookie catcher Josmil Pinto had two
hits in his major league debut, including
an RBI double in his second at-bat.

The lineup by ages and minor league plate appearances:

Alex Presley, 28, 3,096
Darin Mastroianni, 28, 2,599
Dozier, 26, 1,613
Willingham, 34, 2,242
Plouffe, 27, 3,564
Chris Colabello, 29, 3,474
Clint Thomas, 29, 3,098
Josmil Pinto, 24, 2,396
Doug Bernier, 33, 3,815

One player in the lot under age 26, and more than half have more than 3,000 minor league plate appearances.

The future, by and large, is now with this bunch. Remember, 27 is the most common age for peak seasons; 26 and 28 are the next most common. Remember too, major league stars seldom spend much time in the minors.

Don't take the broadcasters seriously when they talk about the youth of the Twins lineup. It will be young when guys like Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario and Byron Buxton crack it. Those guys aren't here yet.

It's really not even an inexperienced lineup. These guys have plenty of experience — most of it in the minors.

Pic of the Week

Mets baserunner Eric Young Jr. beat
Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins and catcher
Carlos Ruiz to third base after Ruiz caught
a pop up in the third inning Wednesday.

This was apparently sharp baserunning by Young, who was on second and noticed that third base was being left unguarded while everybody in the infield pursued the pop-up. You don't see many base runners tag up and advance on infield flies.

And the resulting image looks like baseball Twister.