Article: Minnesota's Rotation: Better than Advertised?

[yarnivek1972]

This is why I trade prospects for good MLB players 10 times out of 10. I'm certain people here thought the Astros overpaid for Cole... They got the last laugh.

 

If you want to have more fun with past trades, look at how awful the Christian Yelich trade is for Miami now... And people also thought at the time the Marlins got a haul.

 

Trade your prospects when you can. Laugh all the way to the bank when the established MLB player you receive is way better than any top 100 prospect you sent to the other team.

Just look at the Knoblauch trade. The Twins got Guzman, who was never as good as Jeter. The Twins got Milton, who was never as good as Pettitte, or frankly just about anyone the Yankees used as a starting pitcher during the entirety of Milton’s career. And the Twins got Brian Buchanan. All the Yankees got was 3 titles. I’d say they won that one.

[FlauerPauer]

 

Try and find an ace without giving up Lewis and Kirilloff.   Like Nick Nelson said the other day, there are 30 #1's in baseball, but only 10-12 aces.

 

I wonder what it would take to take a run at Bumgarner and Will Smith from the Giants... Could it get done without giving up 2 of Lewis, Kirilloff, or Graterol?

[howieramone2]

 

I wonder what it would take to take a run at Bumgarner and Will Smith from the Giants... Could it get done without giving up 2 of Lewis, Kirilloff, or Graterol?

Bumgarner is a 2 month rental. If we take on his entire salary, I don't believe we would need to include those 3. That move could cement the Central.

[Vanimal46]

I wonder what it would take to take a run at Bumgarner and Will Smith from the Giants... Could it get done without giving up 2 of Lewis, Kirilloff, or Graterol?

Yes, IMO. They're both rental players. Teams don't have to give up much for rentals anymore if the last couple of years is any indication.

[Rosterman]

I want to see someone step up this year from the farm club, if not two guys. Which means it will be highly interesting to see how the Twins play the trade deadline with Pineda, Gibson and Odorizzi. None of the three were a MUST extension sign, although we needed to see Pineda. So you have to weight in and their worth for bringing back talent against how secure you feel elevating a Gonsalves or Stewart of Thorpe to the majors and hoping they can keep the team competitive. Of course, the Twins could also be buyers themselves. which would make any of thre three truly expendable.

 

Nice that Perez is holding down the lefty end of the rotation. A nice thing to have.

 

[TheLeviathan]

I'm encouraged, but I'm far from sold on this group.

 

I'm sold on Berrios though - he's a Game 1 playoff starter.

[Mike Sixel]

 

I want to see someone step up this year from the farm club, if not two guys. Which means it will be highly interesting to see how the Twins play the trade deadline with Pineda, Gibson and Odorizzi. None of the three were a MUST extension sign, although we needed to see Pineda. So you have to weight in and their worth for bringing back talent against how secure you feel elevating a Gonsalves or Stewart of Thorpe to the majors and hoping they can keep the team competitive. Of course, the Twins could also be buyers themselves. which would make any of thre three truly expendable.

 

Nice that Perez is holding down the lefty end of the rotation. A nice thing to have.

 

I'm reaching further into the minors for SP help than those three......I think.

[mikelink45]

At this point we have

Berrios - excellent 

Odorizzi - either good or bad and showing some promise to continue the good

Pineda - trending downward

Gibson - showing hope, but still not where we expect him to be

Perez - shocking!

 

This is a decent rotation for a team that is pounding the ball, but not excellent - just above average.  Take out Berrios who many do not seem to think is an Ace and we have mediocre or worse.  Soon I hope to see new arms starting to push into the rotation - not sure which, but we need at least one good arm to boost us for a real pennant drive. 

[twinssporto]

 

Here is how the Twins' rotation ranks in the majors:

 

12th in ERA
13th in FIP
21st in K%
15th in K-BB%
7th in WHIP (.280 BABIP)
16th in SIERA

 

Pretty mediocre.  Dead smack in the middle of MLB rotations.

 

The bats and some timely individual starter performances have been driving the Twins' success so far this season.  To be competitive in the post season they will need an Ace who will push Berrios to 2 and Odorizzi/Perez to 3 & 4.

Reminds me of 87 Twins...

[Doomtints]

 

Reminds me of 87 Twins...

 

...who had 85 wins.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

At this point we have

Berrios - excellent

Odorizzi - either good or bad and showing some promise to continue the good

Pineda - trending downward

Gibson - showing hope, but still not where we expect him to be

Perez - shocking!

 

This is a decent rotation for a team that is pounding the ball, but not excellent - just above average. Take out Berrios who many do not seem to think is an Ace and we have mediocre or worse. Soon I hope to see new arms starting to push into the rotation - not sure which, but we need at least one good arm to boost us for a real pennant drive.

and two to three bullpen arms

[jorgenswest]

Here is how the Twins' rotation ranks in the majors:

 

12th in ERA

13th in FIP

21st in K%

15th in K-BB%

7th in WHIP (.280 BABIP)

16th in SIERA

 

Pretty mediocre. Dead smack in the middle of MLB rotations.

 

The bats and some timely individual starter performances have been driving the Twins' success so far this season. To be competitive in the post season they will need an Ace who will push Berrios to 2 and Odorizzi/Perez to 3 & 4.

Wouldn’t the more relevant comparison be within AL? My guess is that there are more NL teams in the top half of those categories without pitching to the DH. If the Twins are generally in the top half of the AL that is better than mediocre to me.

[Riverbrian]

We will not get 180 innings out of all 5 over the course of the season. We will be lucky to get 180 innings out of 3 of the 5.

 

The season will depend on the AAA replacements keeping us in games and the same for all of our pitchers. Then Letting the offense do their thing.

 

Stay in contention and high quality rentals should be available that don’t cost us Lewis or Kiriloff.

 

We just need the pitching staff to keep us in ball games.

[I Never Bet On Sports]

19-10 Best record in the majors tonight, I think I will focus on that stat alone for the next 24 hours, great job rotation!

[2wins87]

I'm not too surprised at how good the rotations was.  I sort of bought the company line that they were going to coach Perez and others into big improvements. Maybe I'm a sucker.

 

The biggest surprise for me has been Odorizzi, since I never felt he was all that great.  An under-appreciated story line is that Odorizzi's velocity has actually been up a bit, and I wonder if Wes Johnson is behind it at all.  It's only about 1 MPH difference, but if you look at his average velocity at this time in the season from other years he's clearly above the last couple, and possibly throwing as hard as ever in his career.  It's something I'm keeping an eye on.

[twinssporto]

 

...who had 85 wins.

World Series Champs too!  

[IndianaTwin]

The better results of the starters can also improve the bullpen. So far they averaged 5.6 innings/start. Last year’s team averaged 5.1. Still a small sample, but if that continued that’s about 80 innings we don’t need to come up with from the bullpen, or roughly the innings from one stud reliever many of us (including me) wanted to sign.

 

And while we’re at it, a better offense helps the bullpen in that a few innings become lower leverage, lowering the likelihood of overusing the top relievers.

 

So maybe the team “improved” the bullpen more than we thought. They did it by signing Pérez, Cruz, Schoop, etc.

Edited May 3, 2019 by IndianaTwin