Breaking down Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes's 2012 Topps card.

Away back in the winter of 2007-08, when the Twins were shopping Johan Santana, Phil Hughes was a hot Yankee prospect and the arm connected to a potential trade. It never happened, of course.

But now, unless something unforeseen jams up the process (like a physical that discovers he has cancer or something), Hughes is about to become a Twin after all. The Yankees, weary of his tendency to allow homers, made no effort to retain the 27-year-old righty and 2010 All-Star as a free agent, and he hopped onto the Twins' three-year, $24 million offer.

One thing I like about the signing: Hughes is a significantly different pitcher than Ricky Nolasco, who agreed to join Minnesota last week. Nolasco relies on his breaking balls and gets a conventional set of results; Hughes is more a power arm and is one of the most pronounced fly ball pitchers around. The Twins rotation now figures to have a more diverse set of skills and approaches, rather than being a steady parade of sinker-slider guys.

The numbers, as provided in the Bill James Handbooks:

In 2013, Hughes faced 642 batters. They hit 144 ground balls (22.4 percent), 106 line drives (16.5 percent) and 217 fly balls (33.8 percent).

In 2012, in which Hughes was more effective, he faced 815 batters, who produced 192 ground balls (23.5 percent), 118 line drives (14.4 percent) and 282 fly balls (34.6 percent).

Hughes' average fastball velocity is listed at 92.4 mph in 2013, 92.1 in 2012. In the season just finished, he used the fastball on 62 percent of his pitches, with slider an emphatic second choice (24 percent). He also threw a curve (9 percent), a change (5 percent) and a very occasional splitter (less than 1 percent).

His mix in 2012 was, according to the Handbooks, a bit different: 65 percent fastballs, 18 percent curves, 10 percent changes, 4 percent sliders and 2 percent cutters. I don't know if there was an actual change in the mix or if this is an issue with pitch identification.

The obvious issue for Hughes with the Yankees was his home-road split. Last season he was 1-10 with a 6.32 ERA in Yankee Stadium, 3-4, 3.88 on the road. He gave up 17 homers in 78.1 innings in the Bronx, 1.95 homers per nine innings.

Presumably there were several Yankee Stadium homers that won't reach the right field seats, or even the wall, in Target Field. But if the Twins continue to parade Oswaldo Arcia and Ryan Doumit in right field on a regular basis, there's no guarantee those balls are going to be caught, either.

The Sunday Funnies

Joe Jackson -- "Shoeless Joe" -- was a feared hitter in his day. He was also notoriously illiterate.

One day as Jackson stood at the plate, a leatherlunged fan behind third base kept yelling at him: "Hey Joe! Spell cat!"

Jackson paid the heckler no heed, focusing on the pitcher. He got an offering he liked, lined it into the gap, sprinted around the bases and slid into third.

Then Jackson scanned the seats until he had located his tormentor. He spit tobacco juice in his direction and yelled back, "Hey, (expletive)! Spell triple!"

Hughes news for Twins

Word started circulating Saturday night that the Twins had reached an agreement with Phil Hughes, 27-year-old free agent pitcher who has spent his career with the Yankees.

Hughes was on my list of pitchers I wanted the Twins to pursue, as was Ricky Nolasco, so this is not an unwelcome development.

Obviously he comes with question marks. Those are some pretty ugly numbers he's put up the past few years. He's an extreme fly ball pitcher, and the new Yankee Stadium wasn't a good fit for him, but the Twins outfield defense, as currently constituted, isn't going to help him much.

I'll write in more detail about Hughes for Monday.

The rotation as it stands now

Ricky Nolasco's 2012 card.

With Ricky Nolasco still awaiting his physical before he is officially in the fold, here's how I see the Twins rotation shaping up:

1) Nolasco. While he's nobody's idea of a Cy Young contender, he clearly has the best track record on this roster. A third- or fourth guy in a good rotation, such as the Dodgers last year.

2) A pitcher to be named later. The Twins will add at least one more veteran starter this offseason. Count on it.

3) Kevin Correia. He was better in 2013 than I expected, but even that level wouldn't keep him in the rotation of a playoff caliber club.

4) Kyle Gibson. It's time to see what he's got. If he doesn't come out of spring training in the big league rotation, something's wrong. Ideally, by the end of the season he will have climbed higher on this list.

5) Somebody from the grab bag of 2013 returnees. My personal favorite is Scott Diamond, but the front runner is probably Sam Deduno. Other possibilities would include Andrew Albers. Vance Worley and Liam Hendriks.

The rotation that opens isn't likely to be the rotation for 162 games, of course. If 2014 goes the way the Twins hope, Alex Meyer and/or Trevor May will push their way in at some point. I don't see either doing that to start the season.

Ricky Nolasco in context

My initial post after word broke about Ricky Nolasco agreeing to terms with the Twins was in part about about his repertoire. Some context might be in order.

A heavy majority of major league pitchers throw the fastball more than half the time — in an essay in the 2014 Bill James Handbook, James says that, counting the cutter as a separate pitch, 80 percent throw the fastball at least 50 percent of the time. More than half of pitchers throw at least 60 percent fastballs. (If you count the cutter as a fastball, reliance on the fastball is even higher, so these are conservative numbers.)

So Nolasco is an exception. He throws his fastball on just 44 percent of his pitches, or did so in 2013. He threw a breaking ball, curve or slider, just as often as his fastball — and a splitter, a pitch the Twins have apparently discouraged in their system, the remaining 12 percent.

A bit more on Nolasco as a pitcher: He faced 834 batters this year. Those batters (this, again, from the Handbook) generated 258 ground balls (30.9 percent); 146 line drives (17.5 percent); and 196 fly balls (23.5 percent). Of his 3,183 pitches, 64 percent were strikes, and 17 percent were swinging strikes.

In 2012, Nolasco's GB/LD/FB percentages were 34.9 percent/16.2 percent/23.7 percent. (The 2013 Handbook doesn't give the strikes/swinging strike percentages for 2012.)

OK, so what do those numbers mean? I don't really know. This kind of (in James' term) "fourth-level" data is fairly new. I've done a little digging into the numbers regarding some of the Twins pitchers — posts will come as soon as next week — but I'm not sure I really have a good grasp of the context of them. I will say this: Nolasco certainly isn't an outlier in any of these percentages the way he is in pitch selection.

One thing I find intriguing about Nolasco is that his "first and second level" results — wins and losses being what James calls first level, ERA second level— consistently lag his "third level" numbers (batters faced, strikeouts, walks, etc.) Nolasco's "component ERA" — a James invention that projects an ERA off a pitcher's secondary stats — is better, season after season, than his real ERA. Meaning that, for whatever reason, more runs score off him than one should expect from a pitcher who gets his strikeouts, hits, walks and home runs.

Nolasco's career ERA — we should remember, he's been working in pitchers parks in the non-DH league — is 4.37. His career component ERA is 3.89, almost a half-run lower. His career FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) is 3.76, which again is markedly better than the actual ERA. His career ERA+ — which adjusts ERA for park effects — is six points below league average.

This leads me to this conclusion: Nolasco hasn't gotten the results he's capable of getting, and over eight seasons that's probably not a fluke. What he's done was good enough to get him a $49 million contract from a team whose rotation he instantly heads.

He makes the Twins better. He'd make them better still if the final results match the building blocks.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yum yum yum

Another Thanksgiving, another year of the turkey photo. Gotta love tradition.

The 2013 Twins didn't give their fans a lot to be thankful for. We saw another 90-plus loss season that featured the end of Justin Morneau's time with the team and the end of Joe Mauer's time as a catcher.

But there's hope coming. I'm glad —thankful — I took the trip to Cedar Rapids in time to see Byron Buxton play. Buxton — and Miguel Sano and Alex Meyer and Eddie Rosario and others in an increasingly loaded farm system — offer a break from the decline of the past three seasons. Their time is coming.

Hope, as the Casey poem tells us, springs eternal in the human breast. In baseball and in other endeavors, that is always something to be thankful for.

Nolasco to the Twins

There's been no formal announcement of this signing, and won't be until he's passed a physical, but free-agent pitcher Ricky Nolasco switched his Twitter avatar to the Twins logo this afternoon, which would seem to indicate that he's struck a deal with Minnesota.

Nolasco is a 30-year-old right-handed starter who has spent most of his career with the Marlins. He's had six straight seasons of at least 10 wins and has a career strikeout rate of 7.4 men per nine innings, which is (a) about MLB average for all pitchers and a bit above average for starts and (b) a lot higher than any current Twins starter. He also has a good control record (2.1 BB/9 for his career).

According to Baseball Info Systems, Nolasco averaged 90.3 mph with his fastball last season. He doesn't throw that pitch as often as most pitchers; BIS says he threw the fastball 44 percent of the time. His other pitches: slider, 27 percent of his pitches; curve, 17 percent; splitter, 12 percent.

He finished last year with the Dodgers and made one playoff start, losing to the Cardinals in the NLCS.

No immediate word on terms, but it's a safe bet that This is the most expensive free-agent signing in Twins history: 4 years, $49 million guaranteed, with a fifth-year option, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.

One starter added. At least one more to go.