Hunter Hangs 'Em Up

Hunter is retiring after a nice final season with the Twins (MLive)

After a stellar and tremendously consistent 19-year career, Torii Hunter is calling it quits.

Hunter had returned to the Minnesota Twins--who drafted him out of high school and watched him develop into one of the best center fielders of his generation--on a one-year deal for 2015. While he didn't explicitly say so, it was assumed he intended to retire as a member of the Twins, whom he played for from 1997-2007. He was going to be 40 in July, and while he'd been productive the last couple years one get the sense that his career was winding down. Why else would he want to come home?

Especially since the Twins have been terrible the last few years. When guys get to be Hunter's age and haven't won a ring yet, they usually want to go where they'll have a chance to do so. A popular, respected player with some juice left in his bat like Hunter could have latched on almost anywhere, had he been willing to take a discount. In need of a bat and veteran leadership for its up-and-coming team, Minnesota paid him above market value to come back.

It seemed like a sentimental move more than anything else. Hunter had been replacement level in 2014 and figured to be worse in 2015. That's nobody's idea of a $10 million player. But if anyone could afford to give a former star one last victory lap, the Twins could. With so much young talent to break in, Minnesota wasn't ready to contend.

As it turned out, the team and Hunter were both much better than expected. The Twins surprised everyone by finishing second in the AL Central, pursuing a wild card berth until the season's final week. Hunter hit 22 home runs--his most in a season since 2011--and played 139 games.

It was a fitting farewell for Hunter, one of the best and most popular Twins of all-time. Drafted by Minnesota in 1993, he made the big club in 1997 alongside David Ortiz, who like Hunter kept hitting throughout his entire 30s.

Also like Ortiz, it took Hunter a few years to get going. He didn't break out until he was 25, by which point he was in his fifth season--but once he did he never looked back. He hit 27 home runs and won his first of nine straight Gold Gloves that year (2001), made his first All-Star team and finished sixth in the MVP vote the following year, and had his first 100 RBI season the year after that. Nicknamed "Spiderman" for his amazing catches, he was quietly one of the best players of the 2000s, racking up eight Gold Gloves and topping 20 homers eight times (11 in all).

By the end of the decade he was an Angel, having moved on after a big walk year in 2007. When Vladimir Guerrero departed he moved over to right, which no doubt extended his career. He'd shown signs of slowing down in his last season as an everyday center fielder, batting .262 with his worst slugging percentage in over a decade.

But before long LA's outfield became too crowded for him, with Mike Trout taking over in center and Josh Hamilton signing on. Hunter found a home in Detroit, where he had two near-identical offensive campaings in 2013 and 2014.

It was towards the end of his first year with the Tigers that he was involved in what may be the most memorable play of his career. It was Game 2 of the ALCS and Boston, and Detroit led 5-1 in the bottom of the eighth. The bases were loaded and David Ortiz, Hunter's old teammate, stood at the plate, facing fresh reliever (Joaquin Benoit) summoned to extinguish the flames.

Ortiz turned on Benoit's first pitch and belted it deep into the night. 37,000 cold, tired fans leapt from their seats as the ball rocketed towards the right field bullpen. Hunter raced back to the wall and leapt, his glove hand stretched as high as it could go. Hunter had robbed many a would-be home run before, and it looked like he might do so again. He timed his leap perfectly, but without time to set his feet  he slammed into the wall, then flipped over it as his momentum carried him out of play. The ball followed him into the bullpen, having just cleared his outstretched mitt.

The game was tied, and within a matter of hours, so was the series. The Red Sox went on to win in six, then proceeded to beat the Cardinals in the World Series. Had Hunter made the catch, Detroit would have won the game and probably the series. It could have been them celebrating after defeating St. Louis. And Hunter, of course, would have been the hero for robbing a would-be game-tying grand slam.

Instead, he retires with the best play of his career occurring in an All-Star Game. It was a superb play, to be sure, but I guarantee Hunter would trade it in a heartbeat for the ALCS grab, especially since he nearly killed himself trying to make it.

But not even that could slow him down. Nothing ever did.

Oh sure, he lost range over time as all mortals do. His defense inevitably slipped, forcing him over to right field and eventually DH. But even as he became a non-factor on the bases and a liability in the field, he remained a threat in the batter's box.

It's rare that centerfielders age as well as Hunter did. I think of Mickey Mantle, Dale Murphy, and Ken Griffey Jr., all of whom broke down in their 30s. Same goes for Andruw Jones, Vada Pinson, Fred Lynn, and Cesar Cedeno. Jim Edmonds couldn't stay healthy. All that running and crashing into walls usually catches up to you.

Not Hunter. He had pretty much the same season every year for 15 years. He'd bat around .280 with 20 homers, 20 steals, and 90 or so RBI. Like clockwork. There were a couple years where he got hurt--in 2005 he was limited to 98 games and in 2009 played only 119--but for the most part he was in the lineup everyday.

You know whose career Hunter's reminds me a lot of? Johnny Damon's. They were never really great, All-Star caliber players, let alone serious MVP candidates, but they were really good for a long time and held up surprisingly well. They played on some terrific teams and were usually in the postseason. They were pretty indestructible, too.

Hunter wasn't quite as good as Damon, but he had a better career than most people realize. His counting numbers are actually very similar to Jim Rice's. He surpassed 350 homers and fell just short of some other big round numbers like 2,500 hits, 500 doubles, 200 stolen bases, 1,400 RBI, and 1,300 runs. Not quite Hall of Fame numbers, but Hall of Very Good for sure.

Most impressively, Hunter went out on his own terms, not because of injury or as some washed up bum on a team he didn't care about. He got to retire as a healthy contributor for his original team after a year in which they almost made the postseason. It's not the perfect final chapter, but it's still a happy ending.

Sox Blow Early Lead, Settle for Split

Hunter connects for a three-run homer, his 200th with the Twins (Star Tribune)

The Boston Red Sox were in complete control of yesterday's series finale versus the Minnesota Twins through the first four innings. Boston led 4-0, had opposing starter Tommy Milone on the ropes, and Steven Wright was baffling Twins batters with his knuckleball. It looked as though the Sox were headed for an easy win, not to mention their first series win in almost two weeks.

That momentum evaporated with one swing of Torii Hunter's aging bat in the top of the fifth, when the 39 year-old crushed a three-run homer over the Monster to bring Minnesota back to within one. The Twins tied the game the next inning--Wright's last--aided by an overthrow from Pablo Sandoval into the Boston dugout.

The Red Sox still appeared to be in good shape heading into the ninth inning, what with Koji Uehara on the mound (one earned run allowed in the past six weeks) and the top of their order due up in the bottom half. All Koji had to do was keep the Twins off the board and turn the game over to Boston's best hitters--Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez, and David Ortiz.

Shockingly, Uehara failed to record a single out despite getting two strikes on three of the four batters he faced. Brian Dozier stroked a two-strike single, then Hunter did the same. In a bizarre and highly questionable managerial move by Paul Molitor, Joe Mauer laid down a sacrifice bunt that dribbled out in front of the plate. Rookie catcher Blake Swihart rushed out to retrieve it and fired to third, hoping to nail the lead runner, but his throw was low and eluded Sandoval's glove, ending up in left field. The gaffe scored Dozier, giving Minnesota the lead, and advanced Hunter to third.

Trevor Plouffe worked the count full, then drove a single to left that absolutely could have been caught had Hanley Ramirez gotten a better jump and/or been a faster human being. Instead it landed over his head and bounced up against the wall. Hunter, who would have scored easily even if Hanley had made the catch, came home while Mauer moved up to second.

John Farrell had seen enough from his rattled closer, and removed him in favor of Craig Breslow. Breslow only made things worse, however, allowing two more runs to score and essentially putting the game out of reach for Boston. The Red Sox batters did their part by going down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth against Twins closer and likely All-Star Glen Perkins, who nailed down his second save in less than 24 hours.

The Red Sox hope to get back on track tonight against the only American League team with a worse record than them--the scuffling Oakland A's. Wade Miley will try to even his record at 5-5 as well as bounce back from a horrendous outing in Texas last weekend, where he was battered for nine hits and six runs (five earned) in four innings. Boston will face a much tougher opponent in the form of Scott Kazmir, whose ERA is more than two full runs lower than Miley's at 2.93. First pitch will be at 7:10 PM EST.

Hunter Having Another Fine Year

At 39, Torii Hunter continues to rake (FanCloud.com)

Every year for the last three or fours years I think to myself "this is the year that Torii Hunter's going to fall apart." I thought it was going to happen for sure after 2011, when a 35 year-old Hunter batted .262/.336/.429, producing a .765 OPS over 100 points lower than his .873 OPS in 2009. Age, injuries, and a lifetime in center field seemed to be getting the best of him. So I stayed away from him in fantasy drafts, avoiding the veteran outfielder in favor of younger, safer investments like Nick Markakis and Austin Jackson.

And every year, without fail, Torii Hunter proves me wrong. Like David Ortiz he keeps plugging along. Now 39, he's still hitting like he's 29. He can't run like he used to, can't play Gold Glove defense in center field like he used to, but the man can still mash. As contemporaries like Carlos Beltran, Alfonso Soriano, Bobby Abreu, Ichiro Suzuki, and Raul Ibanez have slowed or stop producing altogether, Hunter continues to put up good numbers. Moving to right field and occasionally DH'ing has helped his bat, consistently better than average for more than a decade now, remain dangerous.

But for awhile this year, it did seem like Hunter was close to done. He suddenly looked old and banged-up, not fully recovered from his heart-stopping wall-flip into the Boston bullpen last October, and his numbers reflected that. Through July 1st, he was hitting just .249/.274/.409, a far cry from last year's numbers as well as his career norms. He had only one home run since May 29th, and with his 39th birthday rapidly approaching the end of Hunter as an everyday player seemed near.

Then the calendar flipped to July and Hunter snapped out of it. He started to hit and hasn't stopped, having just completed a month where he batted .364/.406/.648 with six home runs and 24 RBI. His fiery four weeks raised his batting line to .281/.311/.474 at the end of July, hiking his OPS 102 points from the first of the month to the last. With ten multi-hit performances, Hunter raised his batting average more than 30 points. He boosted his on-base percentage on the right side of .300. And his slugging, barely above .400 at the dawn of the month, is now one more hot week or a handful of long balls away from .500.

Hunter's back, and based on how he's hit these last few years, probably for the rest of the summer. I was wrong to think otherwise. I always am.

Examining Torii Hunter's High Batting Averages

Hunter's hitting for the highest averages of his career 

Torii Hunter has been a great baseball player for many years. He's made five All-Star teams, won nine Gold Gloves and smashed more than 300 home runs. His track record includes countless highlight-reel catches, MVP votes, postseason success, and nearly 50 bWAR accumulated across 17 big league seasons. That probably won't be enough to land him a spot in the Hall of Fame, but there's no questioning his plaque in the fictional Hall of Very Good.

But for all of Hunter's accomplishments, he had never batted .300 in a season until 2012, his final season with the Los Angeles Angels. He'd come awfully close in 2009, when he hit .299, but most years his batting average settled near .270 or .280. It was surprising, then, that his average spiked from .262 in 2011 to .313 the next year, the same summer he turned 37. Incredibly, Hunter managed to pump up his BA 51 points--an increase that is almost unheard of for players his age--despite posting the worst strikeout rate of his career.

The explanation behind his batting average boost was a fluky .389 BABiP, the second-highest mark in baseball last year (one point below Dexter Fowler's .390 mark). Hunter's not getting any faster at this stage in his career, so he must have gotten luckier, right?

Well, to some degree, yes. Fortune always plays a part in BABiP and batting average, but there's more to it then that. Hunter did get lucky, but he also altered his batting approach. To compensate for his diminishing power stroke, Hunter leveled out his swing, an adjustment that resulted in a career-best line drive rate and ground ball rate, as well as a career-low fly ball rate. Accordingly, his BABiP went through the roof. Fly balls that don't leave the park tend to wind up in outfielders' mitts. Line drives and ground balls, on the other hand, find holes and take funny hops. They are tougher to convert into outs.

This year Hunter's BABiP and batted ball data have regressed closer to his career norms, though he's still enjoying good luck on balls in play with his .347 mark. One would expect his batting average to suffer a similarly drastic drop off, but instead it's dipped just five points down to .308.

So how is he pulling that off? Hunter's been able to maintain his high average by getting the bat on the ball more frequently and becoming hyper-aggressive at the plate. His strikeout rate is down, his contact rate, is up, and he's swinging at everything. No wonder his walk rate is down to 4.1 percent, easily the lowest of his career. Here's another stat to illustrate just how trigger-happy Henter's become: in a 52 game stretch between June 9th and August 12th, he walked four times.

That kind of approach would spell disaster for most players, but it's working for Hunter. After batting .274 in his first 15 seasons, he's a .310 hitter in his most recent thousand at-bats (which should represent the decline phase of his career). And he's not slowing down. Over the past two months he's batted .329 and slugged .552, providing plenty of offense for the Detroit Tigers, who got hot and lead their division by 6.5 games entering play today. Barring a late season collapse, the defending American League champs will return to the postseason, putting Hunter in position to bolster his already-impressive resume with one more credential: a World Series ring.