MLBPA Special Assistant Kevin Slowey

[Doomtints]

Slowey's demotion was one of the early comedy of errors that was the 2011 season.

 

Four things:

 

1) Slowey wasn't demoted for Blackburn. Both of them had been starters previously. He was demoted for Duensing, whose 2010 performance made Twins brass salivate. Duensing's dominance was short lived as we all know. We barely even remember that Deunsing was still on the team through 2015.

 

2) Slowey played just fine in relief until his injury. The Twins put him in for 6 innnings in long relief without him being stretched out and he hit the DL right after that appearance.

 

3) The Twins put him back in a starting role after he returned from the DL, and he was terrible. His bloated ERA in 2011 was from those starts, not from when he was relieving. He was clearly still having trouble with the injury. (Though the season was a lost cause by this time and perhaps the position players had thrown in the towel on defense.)

 

4) Yes, the Twins were completely full of **** when they said he was faking an injury and how they treated him seemed to get around. This was a factor in the Twins having great difficultly in attracting pitching later on. One could make a compelling case that the Twins destroyed his arm as well as destroyed his reputation.