Joe Mauer hates Pop-Ups

Sometimes inspiration strikes in odd ways.  Today, Rhett Bollinger, the Twins' MLB.com beat writer, sent out this tweet:

Joe Mauer just popped out. Something he did only once last year in 641 plate appearances. #MNTwins
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013

Wait, what?  I saw that come through my feed and I was immediately interested.  Was it true?

@bridman77 Yep. It's actually only once in the last two years. Fangraphs has the stats.
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013

That seems so unlikely.  Even by raw luck, one would think that Joe Mauer would pop out a few times each year.  Mauer was the best in the AL last year at not making outs.  He only made an out 58.4% of the time.  He had 641 plate appearances  and only one resulted in an infield fly ball, which is what I will now be using to describe a pop up (at times).  He struck out 88 times, so he still made over 300 outs with his bat.  And yet, only once did he make an out by flying out in the infield. 

How rare is this?  I was inspired to investigate.  I started doing some research.  Mauer has only 20 infield fly outs in his nine-year-career.  Crazy.  I decided to look at how many players had 20 or more infield fly outs last season.  Forty.  Forty players!  Forty players popped out as much or more than Mauer has in his entire career, and all just last season.  Now I am really intrigued.  Here's a spreadsheet that resulted from my intrigue:

Infield Fly Ball Nerd Spreadsheet

Looking at the spreadsheet demonstrates just how rare this feat or accomplishment or freak occurrence really is.  In fact, take a look at this chart:

	Mauer Infield Fly Balls	# of Players > 20 IFFB that season	Mauer Infield Hits
2004	1	87	4
2005	3	62	6
2006	2	73	8
2007	1	62	5
2008	6	57	10
2009	2	50	8
2010	4	46	12
2011	0	56	6
2012	1	40	8
Total	20	533	67

Mauer has had 20 infield fly balls in 9 years, and 533 players have had 20 or more infield fly balls in a season during that same span.  I threw in a BONUS! column that shows Mauer has over 3 times as many infield hits than infield fly balls.  How crazy.

Before I go further, this data does not necessarily mean these were all pop outs.  They are simply infield fly balls.  Some may have dropped, although it stands to reason that the vast majority were converted into outs.  So, when I use these terms interchangeably, I apologize.  This isn't an academic journal.

Since we are all in love with this stat at this point, I looked at who created the most infield fly balls per plate appearance.  Basically, these are the Pop-Up Kings (2002-2012 data):

Name	IFFB	PA	IFFB/PA
Eric Byrnes	273	3478	7.85%
Tony Batista	180	2315	7.78%
Mike Rivera	45	593	7.59%
Todd Greene	58	841	6.90%
Mike Moustakas	64	979	6.54%
Rod Barajas	234	3642	6.43%
Joe Crede	212	3307	6.41%
Drew Butera	33	531	6.21%
John Flaherty	43	692	6.21%
Lenny Harris	34	555	6.13%

Do you prefer volume pop-up hitters?  Here is the chart for you!  I used 2004-2012 data, to mirror Mauer's career:

Name	Career IFFB
Vernon Wells	277
Carlos Lee	255
Eric Byrnes	245
Albert Pujols	239
Johnny Damon	221
Alex Gonzalez	212
Jimmy Rollins	210
Yuniesky Betancourt	207
Aramis Ramirez	206
Rod Barajas	205

A few familiar names indeed!  Personally, I'd rather remember Eric Byrnes for his extreme pop-up-edness, rather than for his current gig at MLB Network.  Tony Batista would have absolutely been my first guess as a Pop-Up King.  The way he stands would seem to lend itself to popping up a lot.  The leaders pop-up about every 13 plate appearances.  What about the players with the lowest rate of infield fly balls?  WordHippo tells me that the opposite of a King is a Subject.  So, here are the Pop-Up Subjects (that sounds terrible)(2002-2012 data):

Name	IFFB	PA	IFFB/PA
Larry Bigbie	1	1218	0.08%
Julio Franco	4	1517	0.26%
Ben Revere	3	1064	0.28%
Joey Votto	11	3064	0.36%
Howie Kendrick	13	3232	0.40%
Ryan Howard	19	4701	0.40%
Joe Mauer	20	4552	0.44%
Derek Jeter	34	7644	0.44%
Jose Tabata	6	1197	0.50%
Buster Posey	7	1255	0.56%

Mauer, even with all his anti-pop-up glory, is only 7th.  Larry Bigbie had one pop-up in his career.  Here is the box score from that game, in case you want to frame it.  Many of the names on this list are players who just don't hit a lot of fly balls at all.  Just looking at last year, Ben Revere had the lowest fly ball rate, Jeter was second lowest, Kendrick fourth and Mauer sixth. 

Votto, Howard and Posey seem like the anomalies, as they are all powerful hitters.  Votto and Posey post lower than average fly ball rates, and Howard is right at average.  The fact that each hits a lot of homeruns is quite impressive, as they just hit fewer balls in the air than most power hitters. 

I refuse to try to make sense of anything related to Julio Franco.

Back to Mauer.  Mauer hits an infield fly ball once in every 227 plate appearances.  So, today's event was pretty rare.  In fact, we might not see another one until around June.  The real question is why is he such a Subject of Pop-Ups?  I really hate that name.  Let's call them No Pop-Up Dudes going forward. 

A bigger picture can be seen with all of his batted ball data.  Here are his batted ball rates compared with league average:

Rates	Mauer	League Avg
LD	23.10%	20%
GB	50.30%	44%
FB	26.60%	36%
IFFB	2.20%	10%

This helps to explain his lack of home run power, but overall great hitting. 

BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?!?

I don't know, nothing?

Well, the best contact hitters seem to be good at avoiding the worst type of contact.  It stands to reason that the infield fly ball is the worst type of batted ball.  It doesn't get converted to hits or runs unless there is some sort of hilarious infield mishap and they almost never lead to sacrificed runners. 

Mauer likely avoids this type of contact because he has such a great approach and he doesn't deviate from it.  He swings easily and tends to swing at only pitches he can handle.  The fact that he doesn't hit a lot of fly balls to begin with helps as well.  Overall, Mauer seems to be a hitter who knows exactly what he wants to do, and stays within that approach in nearly all cases. 

Or, he's a wizard. 

Upon further review, Grant Brisbee, Jeff Sullivan, and Jeff Passan all wrote about Joey Votto's extreme aversion to pop ups.  You could argue that he was the original No Pop-Up Dude.  In addition, Sullivan wrote about how remarkable Joe Mauer is.  You can say I stole from everyone and no one. 

Righting a Baseball Card Injustice

I went to Target this afternoon.  That alone is exciting enough for a new post, but there's more!  I was going to get bread and milk for my family.  I also needed to buy some pens, which happen to be on the opposite end of the store.  There's still more.  After procuring my pens, I went down an unmanned checkout aisle to get a soda pop.  I wanted a Diet Dr. Pepper.  Farther down that aisle were the baseball cards.  I thought to myself "oh man, I used to love baseball cards."  It's true.  In fact, this card is burned into my brain and remains my favorite card ever.

I stood there looking at the cards.  At first, I was surprised.  Then, I was confused.  There were packs and then there were jumbo packs, then there were these value boxes and then there were some other value boxes that were bigger.  It was overwhelming.  I had invested a good five minutes into this venture, so I decided I would buy a pack of baseball cards.  I scoured the area for something familiar.  There were old looking cards that were new and there were some packs that had only 3 or 4 cards for like 5 dollars.  Now, I'm no cheapskate, but man, that seems high. 

I found the 2013 Topps.  I used to collect Topps!  In fact, that Kirby Puckett card is a Topps!  I wondered if any of the cards would have giant bats involved, but figured the only legal way to find out was to buy a pack.  So, I got the pack of 2013 Topps.  There were 12 cards for $1.99, which actually doesn't seem that unreasonable.  I'd like to turn this into a cute story where I forget to buy the milk and bread because I was so excited, but that just isn't the case. 

I arrived home and shared with my wife that I bought a pack of cards.  She didn't seem that impressed, but wasn't mad or witty or anything stereotypical like that.  This isn't a sitcom.  However, she was not nearly as excited as I was when I opened the pack. 

The cards are pretty nice.  The photos are good.  There was this weird green card that I assumed was super valuable, but the pack says there are 1 in every 6 packs.  Considering there were roughly 5,000 packs at that one Target, I'm guessing these aren't very rare.  They ugly too.  I didn't get any Twins in Twin uniforms, but I did get this little gem:

I also got rookie phenom Jurickson Profar's rookie card!  I know this because there is a logo with an RC on it:

I zoomed in on his face.  It looks painted.  I can't confirm if Profar's real face just looks like a painting, or if this is a photoshopped image.  If anyone knows the answer, please let me know.  Take a look at this bad picture and see for yourself:

As you can see, I don't take great care of my card collection:

They fell off the couch and landed there.  I had forgotten they were on the couch.  At first, the dog was very interested, but ultimately seemed bored with the whole deal:

One of the blinds is crooked.  I should fix that.  Ok, what's the point of all this?  I got a card that had a checklist on the back.  I didn't take a picture for some reason, and I'm not really able to get off the couch right now:

He does that.  Have you typed with a 90 lb dog on your arm?  You should, it adds a degree of difficulty.    The checklist is the cheese here though.  I remember when I was a kid, the checklist card was just a list of players.  It sucked.  I usually threw them out.  They didn't have a player on it or anything.  This 2013 version had Johan Santana on the front.  Very nice!  I'm a gypsy.  My wife.  Sorry, Borat loop. 

The checklist got me thinking:  do they make a card for each player?  I did some research and found that in 2012, they made 3 series of Topps standard cards.  There was series 1, series 2, and update series.  I guess series 3 would have been too predictable.  I did investigate further and found that "update series" is for players who have changed teams and other events like the all-star game and whatnot.  This confirms my suspicions that each player does not have a card.  

Side note:  Topps makes like a million different sets each year.  Some have really funny names like Gypsy Queen.  There is also a baseball card Wikipedia of sorts.  Here's the link, have fun!

Back to the task at hand.  It's simple math.  There are 330 cards in each of these Topps sets.  330 x 3 = 990.  In any given season, there are at least 750 players, but usually many more.  That should add up, but remember what I said about the "update series."  Perhaps the worst players just don't get a card.  That makes sense, right?

Oh wait:

So, that's not it. 

The reality is that some players must be snubbed!  You can't have a player on a Topps card until they actually play an MLB game.  It's a rule.  It must be a contract thing.  So, some rookies might not get cards until the next season.  That's fine.  There likely was not a 2012 Profar card.  I checked eBay quick but that was exhausting.  There are just too many colors and variations.  What happened to the days of guys holding giant bats?

I decided to find the player checklists from the three series in 2012 to see which Twins were snubbed by the good people at Topps.  In the end, I found 30 players who had cards in the 2012 sets.  I also counted 8 fairly notable Twins without cards.  Here is the spreadsheet I made.  Don't make fun of me.

Card #	Player	Notes
Series 1
62	Ben Revere
81	Liam Hendriks	Rookie Card
95	Chris Parmelee	Rookie Card
97	Jim Thome	Record Breakers, not sure which one
111	Kevin Slowey	In a Twins Uniform, I looked it up
164	Carl Pavano
179	Denard Span
230	Justin Morneau
235	Joe Benson	Rookie Card
249	Trevor Plouffe
276	Scott Baker
292	Ben Revere	again?
303	Danny Valencia	lol
316	Nick Blackburn	lol
Series 2
337	Glen Perkins
389	Alexi Casilla	Note to self:  buy this
411	Tsuyoshi Nishioka	hmm
501	Matt Capps
512	Josh Willingham
517	Francisco Liriano
529	Luke Hughes	huh?
535	Joe Mauer	I was starting to wonder
655	Ryan Doumit
Update Series
US7	Joe Mauer	All-Star
US67	Jamey Carroll
US112	Eduardo Escobar	Rookie Card
US140	Brian Duensing
US158	Jared Burton
US161	Brian Dozier	Rookie Card
US163	Scott Diamond
US274	Jeff Gray	BWAHAHAHAHAHA
US330	Alex Burnett	That's right, the last card for the year is Alex Burnett
No Card	The Snubbed	The Snubbed's WAR
	Darin Mastroianni	0.8 WAR
	Pedro Florimon	0.8 WAR
	Matt Carson	0.1 WAR
	Anthony Swarzak	-0.6 WAR
	Cole De Vries	0.2 WAR
	P.J. Walters	-0.6 WAR
	Sam Deduno	0.5 WAR
	Casey Fien	1.0 WAR

I listed those without cards by WAR.  The winner:  Casey Fien.  Casey Fien was pretty good last year.  He was certainly better than Alex Burnett and Jeff Gray.  Plus, Casey Fien doesn't even have a rookie card, even though he has played in parts of three seasons.  At least not one I can find.  I have decided to reward him with his own card.  I'd say the results are a bit mixed.  I'm still learning the intricacies of gimp.  A billion points if you can guess the body of the player I used.  No google, yo.

Whoa, that is terrifying.

With that, I have righted an injustice and taken you on a journey of what happens on an average Saturday in my house.  If you have feedback, I'd love to read it.  Clearly, I need more things to help me pass the time.

Brad Swanson is a professional photohop guy.  He had the title line in Star Wars.