Terrible bullpen

[Major League Ready]

They were decisive and made the right decisions given the decision criteria before them at the time.  That's called good management.  Criticizing them now because the team has played well without Kintzler is complaining for the sake of complaining. 

 

So far I am quite pleased with the new FO.  From what I can tell, They are approaching needed change in a systematic way and they focused on areas that are critical to building a consistent winner.

[Brandon Warne]

 

I know it may be as much semantics as perception, but I don't feel the bullpen is "terrible" or has been "terrible" this season at all. I think there have been stretches of "terrible" that make this bullpen "inconsistent" in the grand scheme.

I feel this exact selection could apply to the rotation as well.

Look, this team is in contention, has been in contention all season, has been. 500, usually above, only below for a few days here and there, for the entire season. We all know the pitching, rotation and bullpen, aren't where they need to be. But you don't contend and play above. 500 ball with a staff that is "terrible".

Remember how we all pretty much wanted Belisle run out of town at one point? Suddenly we look up to realize he was pitching borderline lights out for weeks on end. But the perception was he stunk. Rogers, maybe overworked, didn't look good after the break, but has been better again lately. Pressly has the big arm, big SO totals, and streaks of pitching well. He's also been pretty bad in stretches. Could almost say the exact same about Duffey.

And now we have a couple good looking kids getting their feet wet and a 3rd who is now getting that chance.

"Terrible"? I say no. Inconsistent? That I agree to!

 

Agree. When the rotation does its part, the bullpen is good. When it doesn't, the bullpen lags too. Novel concept.

[Brandon Warne]

 

Pressly has allowed 9 of 29 inherited runners to score.  By way of comparison, Taylor Rogers has allowed 4 of 26 inherited runners to score.

 

Regarding Duffey, no, he has not been "very good all season".   8 times he's allowed more than one run in an outing, almost 20% of his appearances.  IMO, that is very poor.

 

3.50 FIP, almost a strikeout per inning, better than average GB rate. I'll take that.

[Major League Ready]

 

 

The bullpen as it is currently composed is about as poor as it has been all season.  Belisle is the default closer and he has earned it, but he's far from a "shut down" closer.  Rogers seems to be wearing down some.  He came out of the Break horribly.  He seems better since the Twins cut his workload.  But problematically, the Twins have no other reliable LH reliever.  Believe it or not, I think the Twins will be very happy when Buddy Boshers is back.  He's holding LHB to a .583 OPS, which is in line with his career mark (Rogers is .639 in 2017, but is about the same as Boshers career wise). 

 

Duffey, I don't even know what to think.  This is the 4th time he has given up 3 or more runs in an appearance this season.  It is the 8th in which he has given up more than 1.  That's almost 20% of his appearances giving up at LEAST 2 runs.  By contrast, the oft maligned Belisle has given up more than 1 run in just 5 of 50 outings.  Only once since July started.  Have to go back to mid June to find the second to latest time Belisle's given up more than 1 "earned" run in an outing.  I'm starting to think Duffey simply isn't a MLB pitcher.  Given all the shuttling that has gone on this season, it's surprising he hasn't been one of the guys shuttled.

 

Hildenberger is an odd case.  He has "reverse" splits in that he has been far more effective vs LHB.  Usually side armers would have "normal" same side splits.  Obviously, extremely SSS, so we'll have to see how that continues to play.  

 

Curtiss throws hard, but is too green to be expected to fill a key role.  Same really with Busenitz.  Although he seems up to the task.  His K rate has picked up as he has gained experience.  He had just 4 K in his first 10 IP.  10 K in the 12 IP since, which is more in line with what "we" expected.  At some point, as with all pitchers, hitters will adjust to what he is trying to do to them and then he will have to show he can adjust to what hitters do differently against him.  Perkins' stuff just doesn't fool hitters anymore.  Pressly, much like Duffey, has great stretches and then stretches where he is just brutal.  Nearly all the damage done against him was in a two week stretch in April and 5 days at the end of May.  Of course, he probably more than others (anecdotally), gets bailed out by others in the pen, saving him runs.

 

So, there's basically 3 that the Twins have reasonable confidence in (Belisle, Rogers and Hildenberger) and one more that is trending well (Busenitz).  2 of them made their MLB debuts within the last 10 weeks. Another made his last year.  Concerning, to say the least.

 

At some point, the Twins need to seriously consider giving Michael Tonkin another shot.  One can't hardly pitch much better than he has in AAA this year.  He's been particularly effective against RHB and with runners on.  41 K in 111 PA with runners on this season (between AAA and MLB).  That's impressive IMO.  Plus, he's far more experienced than Busenitz, Hildenberger, et al.

 

If, and that's still a big if, the rotation holds together for the next 5 weeks, it is going to be extremely difficult for the Twins to hold leads with 3 or 4 reliable relievers without wearing them out.

 

 

IMO, this is not the bullpen of a contending team.

 

Well, I think we are all aware that this team lost 100+ games last year and that we needed to rebuild the personnel.  We also knew we had a lot of very good bullpen prospects in the minor leagues and they would be the source of the rebuild. 

 

Would you be happier if we 15 games under 500 as predicted by the national media and most people on this site?  We have been fortunate to have a decent product to watch in the midst of retooling the roster.  This was inevitable so I am not going to complain.  I think I will just enjoy this new roster/ team that is coming together.  There will be some bumps as there have been lately but I am very glad to have a team that's fun to watch while in the process of building a true contender.

 

Between Hildy / Rogers / Pressly / Busenitz / Curtiss / Burdi / Chargois / Reed / Rosario we should be able to put together a great bullpen for several years.   They will all be cheap so that help make room in the budget if the need a FA piece.  Might need another lefty.  We need Rosario to reach his potential and maybe Turly can help in the BP.  Who knows maybe Perk will regain enough velocity to help.

[yarnivek1972]

3.50 FIP, almost a strikeout per inning, better than average GB rate. I'll take that.

The sad thing is, the Twins have little choice but to "take" it. They don't have 8 better guys. Hell, he's probably their 5th or 6th best right now DESPITE allowing 1/3 of inherited runners to score. I think it is of little debate that a guy with an upper 90s fastball and (what can be) a hammer curve should be getting better results.

[howeda7]

 

This wasn't the time to use him. Good lord Molly, talk about killing all momentum.
 

Brutal. Hildy should have been warming up the instant Kepler's HR cleared the fence. 

[drjim]

They were decisive and made the right decisions given the decision criteria before them at the time. That's called good management. Criticizing them now because the team has played well without Kintzler is complaining for the sake of complaining.

 

So far I am quite pleased with the new FO. From what I can tell, They are approaching needed change in a systematic way and they focused on areas that are critical to building a consistent winner.

I am generally supportive of the front office and they were a needed change to upgrade a model that had grown stale and behind the times.

 

But they blundered. This isn't hindsight. The wild card race was composed of flawed teams and they Twins schedule was about to open up. Both of these were clear at the time and have come to pass. Trading their most reliable reliever for minimal return was bad asset management. This isn't complaining for the sake of complaining, this is actual, legitimate frustration in response to something that was seen at the time of the move.

[yarnivek1972]

Well, I think we are all aware that this team lost 100+ games last year and that we needed to rebuild the personnel. We also knew we had a lot of very good bullpen prospects in the minor leagues and they would be the source of the rebuild.

 

Would you be happier if we 15 games under 500 as predicted by the national media and most people on this site? We have been fortunate to have a decent product to watch in the midst of retooling the roster. This was inevitable so I am not going to complain. I think I will just enjoy this new roster/ team that is coming together. There will be some bumps as there have been lately but I am very glad to have a team that's fun to watch while in the process of building a true contender.

 

Between Hildy / Rogers / Pressly / Busenitz / Curtiss / Burdi / Chargois / Reed / Rosario we should be able to put together a great bullpen for several years. They will all be cheap so that help make room in the budget if the need a FA piece. Might need another lefty. We need Rosario to reach his potential and maybe Turly can help in the BP. Who knows maybe Perk will regain enough velocity to help.

This will be the second time under the knife for Chargois and Burdi. Counting on either is wishful thinking IMO. Pressly is barely holding his job. Some of the other kids may pan out. They may not. It's pretty rare for a contending team to have an inexperienced bullpen. Take out Belisle and Perkins (which is pretty certain to happen this offseason) and the most experienced reliever is Ryan Pressly, who is also far from certain to return. After him, it's Rogers, with roughly 1 1/2 years at the MLB level.

[Brandon Warne]

 

The sad thing is, the Twins have little choice but to "take" it. They don't have 8 better guys. Hell, he's probably their 5th or 6th best right now DESPITE allowing 1/3 of inherited runners to score. I think it is of little debate that a guy with an upper 90s fastball and (what can be) a hammer curve should be getting better results.

 

His fastball is around 92-93 mph. I think he's been a little overworked.

[yarnivek1972]

His fastball is around 92-93 mph. I think he's been a little overworked.

According to Brooks baseball, Pressly avg four seam fastball is 95.95 MPH in 2017. What is your source?

[Brandon Warne]

 

According to Brooks baseball, Pressly avg four seam fastball is 95.95 MPH in 2017. What is your source?

 

Thought we were talking about Duffey, sorry.

[Dantes929]

Kintzler probably wasn't worth 3 games.   He gave up leads too and you never know the domino effect.   Likely if he were pitching we would have lost a game or two that we won and won a game or two that we lost.   Net was probably plus/minus less than 2 games.    For the season as a whole I think the bullpen did a very good job when we had the lead and were really bad when they came in already behind.   They blew several games but every bull pen does.  The 25th best or whatever ranking doesn't mean much if they hold leads and give up a lot of runs in games that were lost already.    They are simply efficient.    Pure hindsight to say they should have kept Kintzler for the playoff run when they had a 7% chance of making it at the time.    I don't remember a whole lot of people on here complaining much about it at the time when we were 5 games back and sinking fast.    The sinking at the time wasn't due to the bull pen but the lack of offense so a lot of people had already written off the team.    All sorts of playoff teams have thrown out a Curtiss type out there over the years and some worked out great and some not so much.    It really comes down to this.   If Curtiss had held the 8th inning would anyone have complained about his use?   That I would respect. 

[yarnivek1972]

Thought we were talking about Duffey, sorry.

Looking back, looks like I got them twixed around at some point too.

 

Duffey was mildly overworked early in the year. Not obscenely IMO. He's only worked on 0 days rest 6 times all year. Two times were due to double headers. Another two were due to games extending to at least 12 innings.

Rogers has pitched on 0 days rest 12 times already this year. More appearances than Tyler, but fewer IP. I use him as a comp because Rogers is still pretty new to the pen himself.

[Major League Ready]

 

I am generally supportive of the front office and they were a needed change to upgrade a model that had grown stale and behind the times.

But they blundered. This isn't hindsight. The wild card race was composed of flawed teams and they Twins schedule was about to open up. Both of these were clear at the time and have come to pass. Trading their most reliable reliever for minimal return was bad asset management. This isn't complaining for the sake of complaining, this is actual, legitimate frustration in response to something that was seen at the time of the move.

 

That's a matter of opinion.  The management consulting group I am a part of often evaluates management decision making processes.  We don't find fault in decisions made on the basis of high probability even if the improbable materializes.  

 

We should also consider the net result is a one game playoff.  So, the low odds might have led to a 50/50 shot at a playoff series.

[drjim]

That's a matter of opinion. The management consulting group I am a part of often evaluates management decision making processes. We don't find fault in decisions made on the basis of high probability even if the improbable materializes.

 

We should also consider the net result is a one game playoff. So, the low odds might have led to a 50/50 shot at a playoff series.

But for what gain? That is still the main problem with trading Kintzler, the payoff was so low.

 

I'm not naive to the probabilities, that is why I did not support the move! In my mind, the probability that the return for Kintzler would be a meaningful player needed to be significantly higher than the probability of making the playoffs. Don't see it.

 

I would have soft bought, but absent that selling Garcia was at least understandable, that was a decent return. Less so Kintzler.

[Rosterman]

The Indians just brought up Craig Breslow. Wasn't he pitching somewhere else? 

 

And the Padres just signed some guy named Melville for their divisional push.

 

Yes, it is frustrating. Could the Twins have won EVERY game they lost this week. Yes!

 

 

[Danchat]

A couple days ago Kintzler blew a 2 run lead in the 9th inning for the Nationals. It's not as if keeping Kintzler would make this team 2-3 games better, everyone has their clunkers. 

 

It stinks to see Duffey and Pressly struggle so much even though they have great stuff. Sometimes they can be dominant, sometimes they implode. Curtiss shouldn't have pitched the 9th in a one run game but a lot of crazy things happened that I wouldn't fully blame him for (Garver's errant throw, failing to catch a pop-up).

[Pardon My Dinger]

Hildenburger > Kintzler. The trade is more or less a none issue, IMO.

[Brandon Warne]

 

I am generally supportive of the front office and they were a needed change to upgrade a model that had grown stale and behind the times.

But they blundered. This isn't hindsight. The wild card race was composed of flawed teams and they Twins schedule was about to open up. Both of these were clear at the time and have come to pass. Trading their most reliable reliever for minimal return was bad asset management. This isn't complaining for the sake of complaining, this is actual, legitimate frustration in response to something that was seen at the time of the move.

 

They were three games under .500 and had just lost a series to horse-bleep Oakland. The fact that they've dug out of that doesn't change the fact that they were close to dead in the water any more than this torrid stretch proves they didn't need Kintzler and/or Garcia -- who has been brutal since -- in the first place. 

[Brandon Warne]

Not only that, but there's no real recourse if you keep those guys around after the deadline. They played the probabilities, and the leftovers have flipped the script. Baseball is great. There's really no need to analyze it any other way. Hell, even now they aren't that probable to make the playoffs.

[bird]

 

Agree. When the rotation does its part, the bullpen is good. When it doesn't, the bullpen lags too. Novel concept.

 

 

And when this inevitable performance volatility is discussed by fans, we get the same kind of volatility. One month, people want Beslisle's head on a stick, the next moth he's the one guy no one is complaining about. Cries for Duffey to get a rotation spot turn into calls to stick a fork in him. Polanco needs time in AAA. Granite should play while Rosario sits. Ryan was an idiot for drafting Buxton when the smart call was Gausman, so send him to AAA to rot. Kintzler shouldn't be the closer. Castro...

 

Frankly, I think it's incredible that this team has any shot at all of playing an extra game. I mean, how many players can you name whose performance this year has lacked consistency? Who didn't you name?

 

If we had no past experience with Tonkin and Wimmers, we'd look at their AAA numbers like we just did with Busenitz and Curtiss and wonder why they haven't been promoted. The beauty of baseball in large part right there...

 

Half the time, when the pitchforks come out about some player, my instinct is to start to get excited about him. Gonna really keep my eye on Duffey, Pressly, and Perkins now, and anyone else that gets the fork call...

[Platoon]

Slightly lost int the shuffle here is the fact that if the Twins had played any defense at all late in the game, they might have won. The pop up could have been caught by either of Vargas or Dozier. It looked like Doier thought Mauer was playing 1B. The throw on the steal was lousy, and Dozier overran it. And Garver has a long way to go blocking balls. I noticed earlier in the game, he backhanded a low outside pitch with a guy on third? You won't stay behind the plate long that way. I have always heard that his bat is ahead of his defense. Turner was supposedly the opposite. In typical a Twins fashion the bat won out.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Hildenburger > Kintzler. The trade is more or less a none issue, IMO.

Different teams, of course, but Hildenberger has recorded 2 losses since the trade, Kintzler zero. (Kintzler blew one game into a tie, but never let the other team take a lead.) Not that I would have cut Hildenberger -- those two are not mutually exclusive. Hildenberger was already on the team, and just pitched in a high leverage spot the day before Kintzler was traded. Buddy Boshers was also on the team, and could have just as easily been the roster casualty for whomever they needed to add (looks like Dillon Gee was added August 1st).

[ashbury]

 

I have always heard that his bat is ahead of his defense. Turner was supposedly the opposite. In typical a Twins fashion the bat won out.

This despite a new EVP and GM. Were Jim Pohlad and Dave St Peter framing the boundaries on the Rule V 40-man decisions last December?

[goulik]

Bullpen, Shmullpen! The primary problem has been lack of depth in the Rotation overtaxing the bullpen for the last several years. The only thing this bullpen has lacked is a lockdown closer and the only way we're getting that is by a former starter turning into something unexpected in the bullpen or one of these kids (Curtiss?) bringing up the same mojo they had down there. I don't regret the Kinzler trade and I don't blame the bullpen.

[Dantes929]

 

Slightly lost int the shuffle here is the fact that if the Twins had played any defense at all late in the game, they might have won. The pop up could have been caught by either of Vargas or Dozier. It looked like Doier thought Mauer was playing 1B. The throw on the steal was lousy, and Dozier overran it. And Garver has a long way to go blocking balls. I noticed earlier in the game, he backhanded a low outside pitch with a guy on third? You won't stay behind the plate long that way. I have always heard that his bat is ahead of his defense. Turner was supposedly the opposite. In typical a Twins fashion the bat won out.

My wife and I thought Kepler had the best shot at that pop up.

[USAFChief]

Agree. When the rotation does its part, the bullpen is good. When it doesn't, the bullpen lags too. Novel concept.

That's some odd logic. What does that even mean?

 

Does it mean the bullpen is fine when you only have to use the best 1 or 2 relievers?

 

Does it mean Kintzler shouldn't have been traded, since he was primarily used when the starter did his job?

[darin617]

Having a guy like Matt Belise as closer when he belongs more in the 7th inning role is the main reason why the bullpen is suffering.

[yarnivek1972]

That's some odd logic. What does that even mean?

 

Does it mean the bullpen is fine when you only have to use the best 1 or 2 relievers?

 

Does it mean Kintzler shouldn't have been traded, since he was primarily used when the starter did his job?

Also, if the rotation "does it's job" more consistently, there will still be problems. A team can't use the same relievers everyday. Most relievers are good for roughly 50 pitches per week. Much more than that and it becomes overuse. That generally leads to subpar performance.

 

Does the rotation need to do better, pitch more innings? Absolutely. But I am not prepared to let the relievers off the hook. Some of these guys have been consistently bad or consistently inconsistent all year. Duffey and Pressly most notably. Belisle was terrible early, but has been pretty good since mid June really.

 

I guess it is easy to forget that this is Duffey's first year as a reliever and only his second "full" season at the MLB level. Pressly has been around awhile now though. He needs to be better. This will likely be the 4th straight year his ERA increased and the 3rd straight increase of his FIP by upwards of 3/4 of a run. That's a concerning trend to say the least. The funny thing is, looking at peripherals, Pressly is having a career year. His hit rate is a career best, as are his BB rate and K rate. Until, HR rate. Oops. Coming into 2017, Ryan had given up 16 HR in about 200 IP, a little less than 1 per 9 IP. This year he has given up 9 in less than 50 IP, a rate of 1.7 per 9. That, in a nutshell, is Pressly's problem. Too much hard contact over the heart of the plate.

[USAFChief]

 

Also, if the rotation "does it's job" more consistently, there will still be problems. A team can't use the same relievers everyday. Most relievers are good for roughly 50 pitches per week. Much more than that and it becomes overuse. That generally leads to subpar performance.

Does the rotation need to do better, pitch more innings? Absolutely. But I am not prepared to let the relievers off the hook. Some of these guys have been consistently bad or consistently inconsistent all year. Duffey and Pressly most notably. Belisle was terrible early, but has been pretty good since mid June really.

 

Yeah..."the problem with the bullpen is the starters" is pretty bad reasoning, IMO.

 

And trading away one of the few fairly reliable pieces of that bullpen wasn't going to help the starting staff, now was it?