Perkins Reinvents Himself, Finds Unexpected Success

Chandler originally submitted the following piece for a journalism class. He shamefully recycles it here, with minimal modification, as content for his blog. The format and style may be a little different from that of the usual content published in this forum, but hopefully it is no less enjoyable to read.

In September 2006, Glen Perkins made his major league debut at Fenway Park. He got out all four batters he faced, striking out the first of them, Carlos Peña, on three pitches. The Twins lost the game 6-0, making the chase for the AL Central title and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs a little tougher, but for Perkins, it was an easier "L" to take.

From the day he was drafted by his boyhood team, the Stillwater native and University of Minnesota alumnus took just 836 days to rocket through the minor leagues. When the team got back to Minnesota four days later, he marveled at using the same locker room as Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek, and he remembered asking Tom Brunansky for baseballs in right field.

"There’s all these moments where it's a whirlwind," Perkins, who retired in January, said. "And then you get to take a second and think about, 'Man, I got to do this.'"

After an impressive cup of coffee and a postseason cameo, Perkins was included in both Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus' preseason prospect rankings lists. He thought the experience wouldn’t end.

"When I got up, I… thought, like, I was just going to be there forever," Perkins said. "'Okay, I made it, and now here I am.'"
It didn't work out that way. He began 2007 in the minors but quickly rejoined the Twins a couple of weeks into the season, only to have the year derailed by a shoulder injury that made him miss 100 games. Still, upon his return, he posted a 3.14 ERA in 19 relief appearances.

He stayed healthy the next season, but his performance suffered. Perkins, serving as a full-time starter, posted a winning record despite a low strikeout rate and home run problems. The next year, injuries once again took him off the field, and his ERA approached 6.00.

After a difficult 2010 in which he struggled at both Triple A and the major league level, he was out of chances: if the Twins tried to send him to the minors the following season, they would have to put him on waivers.

Though he always imagined himself in the starting rotation – his role since high school – it was clear that Perkins was not going to make it in the majors as a starting pitcher. For the first time, he went into spring training in 2011 strictly as a reliever. The conversion allowed him to avoid his worse offerings and play to his strengths.

"Very rarely are you going to see a guy that throws two pitches as a starter. It's a three-pitch, a four-pitch mix. They all have to be pretty decent, at least average," he said. "Well, I only had two good pitches."

Those two pitches were a fastball and a slider. The latter was the hardest for opposing batters to hit before Perkins moved to the pen: they hit .195 against his slider, according to Brooks Baseball. The next-lowest batting average he allowed on a single pitch was .278, 14 points more than the major league average over that stretch.

The fastball, meanwhile, gained almost four miles per hour with the switch, doubling opposing hitters' swings and misses and giving him a second strikeout pitch.

With his smaller arsenal, Perkins allowed just two runs over 12 innings that spring, and he made the Opening Day roster. After that, despite a brief DL stint midway through the year, he set career bests in a litany of stats, including ERA, strikeout rate, and home runs per nine innings.

Over the next four seasons, Perkins trimmed his repertoire further, eliminating his changeup and using his four-seam fastball more than the sinker. Despite relying heavily on just two pitches, he found ways to keep hitters guessing.

"I mean, if they have a 50-percent chance of guessing right, they have a 50-percent chance of guessing wrong," he said. "I made sure I would throw those pitches in every count. I would throw sliders when I was behind, sliders when I was ahead, and vice-versa. I tried to keep those ratios in each count as close to 50 percent as I could. So if it's 2-2, they don't know if it's going to be a fastball or a slider.

"That's all I needed, and it worked."

Perkins made three All-Star games, finishing the two he appeared in in 2014 (in Minneapolis, pitching to then-Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki) and 2015. However, during those years, the Twins were among the league’s worst teams, finishing last in the division three times. Perkins said he tried to control what he could.

"I think the most important thing is, is that if you do your job, that’s all you can do," he said. "I never really saw it through the lens of 'I'm doing well; if everyone would do as well as I can, we'd be better.' It was just, 'I'm going to go out there and do my job when I get the opportunity to do my job.'"

Perkins eventually became interested in advanced metrics, beginning with fielding independent pitching. As the data available to players became more detailed, part of doing his job became using numbers to inform his approach.

Now that he’s retired, Perkins hopes to redirect his career path once again and join the Twins front office. He said the teaching aspects of coaching are appealing, but he wants to stay close to home, which he thinks will allow him to be more involved than other recently retired players who have found jobs with the team.

"It's more in my interest, with numbers, kind of with the staff, the people that are running our team, I think we kind of see along the same lines," he said. "I'm going to have an opportunity to be around a little more, and try to get my hands, like I say, a little dirtier and just try to get as involved as I can and as much as they're going to want me to be."