The 2016/2017 rotation

[DaveW]

There are a lot of really crappy things going on with the Twins these days, and though better days are certainly on the horizon I can't help but worry that the starting pitching might be this teams biggest weakness heading into 2017.

Let's look at the "candidates" to fill it out the rest of this year and into 2017:

 

Ricky Nolasco: 5.17 ERA, has no business being in a major league rotation.
 

Phil Hughes: 5.95 ERA, total disaster this year, hopefully its a case of "dead arm" and can come back strong next year, but who knows, things certainly don't look good...
 

Tyler Duffey: 5.33 ERA, after a nice start, Duffey has been getting absolutely LIT UP his last 5 starts, now has an ERA over 8.50 on those games and a WHIP over 2.00. Not good.
 

Pat Dean: 4.75 ERA, not impressive thus far, no real make up to stick in the majors anyways as a starter.
 

Kyle Gibson: 6.10 ERA, guy with significant injury history (TJS) has another injury this year that keeps dragging on...his numbers prior to this year slots him in as a #4/#5 anyways.
 

Ervin Santana: 4.77 ERA Arguably the only guy thus far on this list who sort of "deserves" to be in a major league rotation. Problem is he is looking like a #5, and is getting paid wayyyy to much for such output.

 

Tommy Milone: 5.70 ERA Rough start to this year, has been doing well in the minors, will he get another shot? Does it matter? #5 type anyways at best.

 

Jose Berrios: I won't list his ERA because it is an extreme SSS, for some reason the Twins had zero patience with him (while letting the guys above go out and get shelled time...after time...after time...after time.... He is the only one I feel confident in being better than a #4 type in 2016/2017 at this time. He will be fine, and hopefully a #1/#2, but you need a lot more than that to compete.

 

Alex Meyer/Trevor May: The Twins seem hellbent on giving neither guy a real shot at the rotation at this stage.

 

 

So what do we have now:

 

A #5: Santana

a #4 /#5(if healthy): Gibson

a couple guys who have no business being in the rotation: Hughes, Nolasco

a #6 type depth guy: Milone

a #7/8 type depth guy: Dean

A guy who looked like a #2/#3, but is now looking like a #5/#6: Duffey

A promising player who can be a #1/#2 but needs to get a chance: Berrios

A couple promising players who actually NEED a chance to start: Meyer/May

 

Yikes. Without some major changes the front office and their approach to this rotation heading into 2017, we could be looking at another sure thing 90+ loss year.

[jorgenswest]

They won't get it done in free agency next winter. There are no worthwhile free agent pitchers. Just more Santana's and Nolasco's.

[DaveW]

 

They won't get it done in free agency next winter. There are no worthwhile free agent pitchers. Just more Santana's and Nolasco's.

That's the scary thing. If the current regime is still at the helm, I don't trust them not to make the same mistakes again. They have been doing the same thing for 20 year now.

 

I wouldn't mind a reasonable 1/2 year contract to a Hellickson type, but I don't trust them to even do that.

[Rosterman]

You have to think that the Twins will be comfortable sticking with Santana and a revitalized Hughes into next season. Both, if the team falters and they pitch end-of-the-rotation decent, would be tradable.

 

Kyle Gibson needs to increase his value, eitehr to sign an extension with the Twins (is THAT worthwhile, buying into one of his free agency years) or the Twins need to market him, if he helps to market himself.

 

Duffey is not longterm, sadly. At best, he could be long relief (isn't that what Pressly is). Same with Dean, battling Taylor Rogers for a spot in 2017. I imagine Rogers will win out as he is actually being groomed.

 

 

Best Bet: Send May on a rehab assignment after his DL stint and let him work up to being a starter again at Rochester and hope that you do move Nolasco and give up on Dean/Duffy by July end. No matter what May does, let him start. And hopefully Meyer will not lose another season to a dead arm.

 

Milone in showing some value for a shortterm rental. Maybe package him to the Red Sox for a prospect. Let them see if they can get $2 million of worth out of him.

 

Berrios is the real thing. Wheeler is doing well and should get a shot. Baxendale and Stewart could get added to the 40-man and be viable candidates for a rebuilding team. 

 

Gonsalves is in the wings. It doesn't look that bad, really. But the guys will need some good coaching, some ups and downs, and not be blocked by pitchers that are performing like rookies but getting paid as veteran superstars. If push comes to shove, EAT SALARY.

 

You might be able to fast-trac Jorge and Jay.

 

Sure, we have ALbers and Darnell, neither worthy of a 40-man spot and probably both gone after the season as minor free agents. Looks like Wimmers will not be a starter fer sure.

 

We have Slegers, Eades, Hurlbut, Steele, Rosario in the wings as decision guys to keep or move.

 

2017? Berrios, Meyer, May, Gibson, Santana with Steward, Gonsalves, Wheeler, Jorge, Baxendale in the wings. If Hughes is a keeper, okay, more depth. If Gibson is tradable, go for it. Don't see him as a member of the rotation (my humble opinion) come 2019 at least and not sure if he can increase his value by keeping him around - of course depending on what he actually does end up doing this season.

 

People, we are rebuilding, There is little or no need to spend money on free agents, yet. At some point, you may trade an over abundance of prospects for some quality free agent strength, temporary eat a contract or keep going with indy league comebackers (how did they get to the indy league, Terry yan -- no one gave them a job out of all the major league teams!).

[DaveW]

Are the Twins rebuilding though? The front office has given no indication they have been rebuilding over the last 5 years, and haven't said so yet now. How long are these rebuilds supposed to take anyways?

 

Also I would disagree that Hughes is tradable next year if he pitches like a back end guy for a bit, he is still owed through 2018 IIRC. As much as I like the idea of May/Meyer in the rotation next year, I fear the Twins won't give either guy (much less both) a real shot at it with veterans like Nolasco, Hughes and Santana owed the big bucks.

[The Wise One]

 

They won't get it done in free agency next winter. There are no worthwhile free agent pitchers. Just more Santana's and Nolasco's.

Which to everyone's chagrin was what was available at that time, too

[dgwills]

Yeah, the rotation is a dumpster fire. They should be trying to pick up pitching talent from now until the trade deadline. Can't expect too much with the players we have to trade though. Hopefully they can get a couple of lottery tickets. 

I expect business as usual though. We all knew who Nolasco was, but here he is just eating up innings for reasons I can not understand. Hughes and Santana are on the path to irrelevance. Pretty bleak outlook if a high number of the prospects don't work out.

[FormerMinnasotan]

Rotation for 2017? Well the Twins need to part ways with Ricky Nolasco and Tommy Milone for sure. That leaves us with Ervin Santana, Tyler Duffey, Kyle Gibson, and Phil Hughes. If Berrios is not on the opening day roster next year something is terribly wrong with the Twins organization. Personally I would trade Gibson next year unless he becomes a great pitcher this year (which I doubt will happen), so that opens another spot in the rotation. So our 2017 opening day rotation should look like this: Santana, Gibson, Berrios, Duffey, and Hughes. I'd expect Jason Wheeler and DJ Bexendale will be early season "fillers" if a Twins pitcher gets hurt or traded (most likely Gibson) with Kohl Stewart or Stephen Gonsalves pitchers most likely to make the September call ups next year.

[goulik]

Gonsalves and Jay are both at high A and will not start the year with us next year and Kohl Stewart has 7 whopping innings at AA.... Why are these names even coming up for next year? Hopefully we see one or two of them in 2018 or at best 2017 cups of coffee in Sept. Then we will have to watch them struggle as they acclimate to MLB... If this is our hope for next few years, the Major league team rotation will remain depressing for a while...

[jorgenswest]

Gonsalves, Jay and Stewart are a long way from the majors. The step from high A ball in the FSL where mistakes are fly ball outs to AA is huge. The continued step into AAA where more experienced hitters aren't as fooled by off speed offerings is another significant step. Give them two more years to navigate AA and AAA. Mixed in will be some starts in the majors with varied success. Hope that one of the three can be counted on as a mid rotation starter entering 2019 with the other two getting shots at the back end (assuming the Twins don't continue to spend a large chunk of their budget on veterans filling the back end).

[Shane Wahl]

 

There are a lot of really crappy things going on with the Twins these days, and though better days are certainly on the horizon I can't help but worry that the starting pitching might be this teams biggest weakness heading into 2017.

Let's look at the "candidates" to fill it out the rest of this year and into 2017:

 

Ricky Nolasco: 5.17 ERA, has no business being in a major league rotation.
 

Phil Hughes: 5.95 ERA, total disaster this year, hopefully its a case of "dead arm" and can come back strong next year, but who knows, things certainly don't look good...
 

Tyler Duffey: 5.33 ERA, after a nice start, Duffey has been getting absolutely LIT UP his last 5 starts, now has an ERA over 8.50 on those games and a WHIP over 2.00. Not good.
 

Pat Dean: 4.75 ERA, not impressive thus far, no real make up to stick in the majors anyways as a starter.
 

Kyle Gibson: 6.10 ERA, guy with significant injury history (TJS) has another injury this year that keeps dragging on...his numbers prior to this year slots him in as a #4/#5 anyways.
 

Ervin Santana: 4.77 ERA Arguably the only guy thus far on this list who sort of "deserves" to be in a major league rotation. Problem is he is looking like a #5, and is getting paid wayyyy to much for such output.

 

Tommy Milone: 5.70 ERA Rough start to this year, has been doing well in the minors, will he get another shot? Does it matter? #5 type anyways at best.

 

Jose Berrios: I won't list his ERA because it is an extreme SSS, for some reason the Twins had zero patience with him (while letting the guys above go out and get shelled time...after time...after time...after time.... He is the only one I feel confident in being better than a #4 type in 2016/2017 at this time. He will be fine, and hopefully a #1/#2, but you need a lot more than that to compete.

 

Alex Meyer/Trevor May: The Twins seem hellbent on giving neither guy a real shot at the rotation at this stage.

 

 

So what do we have now:

 

A #5: Santana

a #4 /#5(if healthy): Gibson

a couple guys who have no business being in the rotation: Hughes, Nolasco

a #6 type depth guy: Milone

a #7/8 type depth guy: Dean

A guy who looked like a #2/#3, but is now looking like a #5/#6: Duffey

A promising player who can be a #1/#2 but needs to get a chance: Berrios

A couple promising players who actually NEED a chance to start: Meyer/May

 

Yikes. Without some major changes the front office and their approach to this rotation heading into 2017, we could be looking at another sure thing 90+ loss year.

This is just insane to me, right? How did all of this even happen?

1. Berrios

2. Duffey

3. May

4. Rogers

5. Meyer

Might be about what I thought it could be while trading everybody else. I know that can't happen, but whatever. Now I definitely think that Meyer is likely better for a setup role . . . so that would leave room to not shop either Gibson or Santana. But I do think they should work toward this, including swapping Dean and Rogers. I still do not understand how Pat Dean is starting and Taylor (stretched out to over 200 innings in the AFL last year) Rogers is in the bullpen.

[Shane Wahl]

Chargois, Meyer, and Burdi should be in the bullpen by August, right?

 

And good god get Michael Cederoth out of freaking CR.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Also I would disagree that Hughes is tradable next year if he pitches like a back end guy for a bit, he is still owed through 2018 IIRC.

2019, sadly.

[Winston Smith]

Lucky we have a great GM to fix this.

[Dman]

Hadn't really thought about it that much but I think you are right. Given the pitching we have and what is on the horizon, next year doesn't look much better. Unless guys really improve things won't change that much. Hopefully we can trade some guys at the deadline someway somehow and get the younger players experience to move up the time frames but as things stand right now next year looks bleak to me as well.

[Rosterman]

At some point, the guys doing nothing for the Twins right now have to think about future career opportunities pitching in baseball or retirement. If they choose retirement (shades of Kevin Correia), then the Twins really got taken in the contract offers. Jeez. The dollars and nonsense of baseball. You get paid Great if you are good and Good if you are bad...and sometimes it stretches out longer than anyone should imagine. Show up, try to get thru the battling order once, twice, okay...stuff not quite there today, cash the paycheck and see what happens next outing. Kinda sounds like politics!?!

[TheLeviathan]

This is impossible to project until we know just how few guys we trade at the deadline.  (I refuse to say "how many" because that implies multiple people when I'm hoping for one and feeling like I may be overshooting reasonable expectations)

[Danchat]

I really thought Santana and Duffey were going to be the rotation's best options, but they've both looked bad over their last 5 starts. 

 

Right now the Twins have no choice but to trot out those two and Gibson and hope they can rebound. I would kick Nolasco out of the rotation and give Wheeler a chance though it may be a little early for him. Berrios probably isn't ready to come back... Meyer's hurt... so Tommy Milone?

 

I didn't think this rotation would get this bad and we'd have so few options. There isn't much that can be done at this point.

[Badsmerf]

Santana, Gibson and Berrios should all be fine. I really hope May gets another shot and runs with it. Then, I bet Nolasco gets the last spot. Completely mediocre, but hopefully Jay, Stewart and gonsalves can be that much closer. They all could have a shot at September call up next year.

[DocBauer]

I'm focused on 2017 at this point, though we need the rest of 2016 to build towards it. Personally, I am now of the belief that there WILL be changes next year, and very possibly MAJOR ones.

 

Hughes is a huge dark horse. He's probably un-tradeable, might be best in the bullpen, could suddenly get healthy and get his s**t together and be a solid rotation piece. I doubt he's just DFA material...but it could happen depending on a new regime in charge.

 

But, as stated elsewhere, a healthy Santana provides a solid SP and veteran presence that is still capable. A healthy Gibson still hasn't hit his ceiling, IMO. Berrios will get it figured out, hopefully soon enough to get some good 2017 time in. Duffey hasn't shined as brightly or consistently as last season. But he also has less than a full season under his belt. I'm not giving up on him at this point.

 

That leaves May and Meyer for the 5th spot, with Wheeler in reserve. At least for the first half of the season. By the second half, there could be others.

 

Not a world-beating rotation, but one that is at least much, much younger and has some real possibilities of potential and improvement. Things we don't have now.

[Blackjack]

This was a depressing read.

 

You wonder how much the lack of PED's is affecting Santana??

 

We need Gibson to get healthy and start giving us 7 innings.

 

Come on Berrios, we need you badly!!!

 

If those three would perform up to their abilities, then you could fill in the other two spots with the upcoming AAA guys, Nolasco, Hughes, Milone.  If not, then 2017 will be as bad as this year.

[jorgenswest]

Santana and Nolasco are both performing within in norms of a decline phase pitcher. This performance should have been expected at the time of the signing.

 

In a study of 25 most similar pitchers who were league average through age 31, the median performance is where Santana is right now this year with an ERA+ in the range of 84-94. Of those 25 pitchers who were performing league average at 31, only 40% continue to do so at age 33. By age 35, 60% of the group is no longer a starting pitcher though through their prime they were valuable mid rotation starters. The Twins could have been lucky. Dennis Martinez took a huge step forward and was a better pitcher in his mid 30s than he was in his prime.

 

The Twins are getting the performance that should have been expected.

 

http://twinsdaily.com/blog/36/entry-6349-what-can-the-twins-expect-from-santana-and-nolasco/

[Vanimal46]

IMO they need to shut down Hughes for the rest of the season. Hopefully all of his injuries get resolved and he can start off fresh next year. 

 

Dave's assessment is correct that Santana is now a back of the rotation starter - 4 or 5.

Gibson I guess is a 2 or 3? Even though he's vastly under performing that rank.

 

I continue to cross fingers that Nolasco finds his way off the team.

This team desperately needs Berrios to figure things out and make an impact next season. 

I would also start stretching out May for his return to the rotation.

 

The only SP in FA I have a remote interest in is LH Brett Anderson. He may be worth a 1 year prove it deal. 

Berrios
May
Gibson
Hughes
Santana 

[lukeduke1980]

TR, January 2017: "We're confident that <Phil Hughes, Kyle Gibson, Ricky Nolasco, Tyler Duffey, Ervin Santana> will bounce back this year.  He's put a lot of work in this offseason to <strengthen his shoulder, work on his mechanics, get in shape> and we expect him to be a different pitcher this season."

[gocgo]

I think the biggest issue with the Twins in the front office is that they are loyal to a fault to players, staffers, coaches, etc.  That's great if you're a player, staffer, coach, etc...not so great for us fans.  We keep players because we "like them". They're a good "clubhouse guy".  Meanwhile, we get rid of more talented players who don't quite fit that bill.  It's been going on for years and years and this year is no exception.

 

Of the players that you mentioned, think of how many actually deserve major league starting spots just based on the numbers.

[wsnydes]

 

Are the Twins rebuilding though? The front office has given no indication they have been rebuilding over the last 5 years, and haven't said so yet now. How long are these rebuilds supposed to take anyways?
 

The Twins should be rebuilding.  Should have been rebuilding for the last 3 or 4 years.  Somebody forgot to tell them that though.  And they apparently aren't able to figure it out on their own.  That's the most frustrating part of all of this.

 

 

 

[mazeville]

Ugh this is depressing. This is what I'd do with the rotation right now ...

 

Trade Ricky Nolasco if you can.

Trade Ervin Santana.

 

Both players would not bring much in return and you'd have to eat some salary. But the fact is that neither are doing the job and this team NEEDS to develop starters. 

 

I would call up Berrios and make May a starter. I would also call up Tommy Milone and have him be the long man until one of the starters falters -- and it will happen.

 

So my rotation would be:

 

Berrios

Dean

May

Duffey

Gibson

 

Long man: Milone

Waiting in the wings in AAA: Meyer

 

The hope then is that some of these guys become good or serviceable, while young rotation options start making their way through the system.

 

Next year, I would start working to have Hughes be a reliever. 

[drivlikejehu]

Realistically, there is no light at the end of the tunnel under current management. The rotation is going to be among the worst in baseball indefinitely.

[Mike Sixel]

I just can't go here yet.....but since I read the thread during a boring meeting, ugh. All I got is .... ugh.

[kab21]

This year is a prime example that you can't have enough starting pitching and you shouldn't be putting solid pitchers on waivers before the season even starts because Duffey/Berrios can't start the season in the rotation. I would love it if they were legitimately blocked by solid starters.

 

Unfortunately every single starter has turned into a pumpkin. A pessimist could have predicted that 1 or 2 of the Santana, Hughes, Duffey or Gibson (not to mention Berrios in his limited time) would be absolutely dreadful. I would have felt very safe that as a group those 4 would be around a 4.00 ERA instead of 5.50.

 

Next year you start out with something like this

Santana

Hughes

Gibson

Duffey

Berrios

 

And even with this you will need to have 2-3 starters in AA/AAA ready to go.