Article: No Room in the Rotation for Trevor May

[jharaldson]

He has the worst ERA in all of the majors for active starters and is the only starter in the league with an ERA above 6.00. Uggghhhhh

[TheLeviathan]

The Twins can't keep Correia in the rotation after that performance, can they? He single-handedly lost a game they were winning by four runs.

 

Oh, don't you worry. He'll get another chance, go 5-6 innings with 3-4 runs and it will be said he "kept them in the game", and this will go on.

 

The chord needed to be cut a month ago, I'm honestly not sure it will before the trade deadline now.

[Mike Sixel]

I was really hoping to wake up to a tweet saying KC was DFA last night....but PATIENCE is more important than results, apparently.

[by jiminy]

Exactly right. The Twins thinking on holding back their best arms is so arcane- can we all get together and chip in and get them an ESPN insider subscription?- they can't even begin to grasp the depths of their "penny-wise, pound foolishness".

 

You may be right in this particular case but as a general policy I think you're slightly overstating things. There are very good reasons to keep a player in the minors besides penny pinching. Primarily, they still have things to learn. Trevor May seems like a perfect example of this. Every scouting report I've ever read said he had a good fastball but suspect control, and he needed to work on his secondary pitches. His ERA the past two years certainly bore out that he had a lot to learn. Now he's finally had a hot month, after struggling for two years. Does that mean his control issues are now over, and that his secondary pitches are major league quality? I have no idea. Personally, I don't think one month after two bad years ices the deal.

 

I personally would rather see him down there, learning, than up here, struggling. Bring him up when he's ready. Is he ready, or are the coaches still working with him on his control and secondary pitches? I have no idea.

 

But having found great fault with the twins for rushing Aaron Hicks, and before that Carlos Gomez, who to me seemed like they were rushed to the majors way, way before they were ready -- most likely just to satisfy the hunger of the fans -- I'm not about ro lambaste them for NOT rushing a prospect with well documented holes in his game.

[Mike Sixel]

No one is a finished product at any level.....waiting for perfection before moving people up just wastes time in the minors...imo. Using the word RUSH is a tautology of sorts, it implies that it is bad to move them up because it is bad to move them up, without any data/analysis that states why it is bad.

[jharaldson]

Very disappointed to see that financial considerations seem to be front and center for reasons he is still in the rotation:

 

"Kevin's one of our starters. Paid good money to do that and he's still going to get paid no matter so he's one of our starters," Gardenhire said

 

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/After_latest_rocky_start_Kevin_Correia_will_remain_in_Twins_rotation060514

[Brock Beauchamp]

Every scouting report I've ever read said he had a good fastball but suspect control, and he needed to work on his secondary pitches. His ERA the past two years certainly bore out that he had a lot to learn. Now he's finally had a hot month, after struggling for two years. Does that mean his control issues are now over, and that his secondary pitches are major league quality? I have no idea. Personally, I don't think one month after two bad years ices the deal.

 

Normally I'd agree but it has been more than a month. May has now pitched well for over two months, give or take a clunker here and there.

 

At some point, you need to cut your losses and move on. If the Twins only had May to supplant Correia, I'd be more reluctant to waive Kevin.

 

That is simply not the case. There are four guys in Rochester flat-out dominating hitters.

 

It's time to move on from Correia.

[by jiminy]

So, having the probably better player in MN is not a priority? Some day that will be the priority in MN, someday.

 

"Working on secondary pitches and FB command" -- that is my priority. If these people are the cornerstone of the future, let's invest the time in making them as good as they can be.

 

And not just so their low-cost service time in the majors is spent pitching well, instead of learning on the job -- though that is a huge benefit, and not to be scoffed at -- but so they reach the peak of their abilities at all. I think the minor leagues are for learning. And the process works.

 

Skipping levels should be a rare thing -- like Joe Mauer or Jason Kubel rare. Not Carlos Gomez and Aaron Hicks skipping AAA entirely just to prove to the fans that the ownership hadn't given up on the present. Those both were huge disasters.

 

Build a winning team by teaching these guys everything you can in the minors, so when they come up, they are truly ready to kick ass. Watching Trevor May walk people and fail to fool anyone with his offspeed pitches would be the most depressing thing imaginable. Making him fine tune his game while dominating minor league pitchers is just fine with me. You're trading a year of ****tiness now for a year of cheap, masterful pitching in 2019, when it matters, and when he'll be at the peak of his powers, versus risking that he'll never develop at all. Did the Twins screw up by teaching Santana a changeup in the minors? Or did they prepare him for success in the majors? Take however long it takes to make sure May has three good pitches that will all confound pro hitters. Don't squander his future on a lost year in 2014

[Mike Sixel]

So don't call up May or Meyer, call up Darnell or one of the other guys.

 

And, wating for perfection is a fool's errand. No one is perfect at anything. Lots of players come up, learn, go down, come back up. It is also a big leap to say if he came up they'd be squandering his future. did Chris Sale squander his by coming up fast? This assumption/tautology that bringing guys up fast ruins them for life is not proven out by the evidence at all.

 

Who is calling for anyone to skip a level? All of these guys are in AAA.