Article: Handling Gibson

[East Coast Twin]

According to Souhan this morning, Gibson will likely start the season in the minors.

 

Kyle Gibson pitched two innings in relief. Indications are he'll be sent to the minors so he can begin slowly building up his arm strength to prepare him for starting later this season. While the Twins were open to the idea of him starting the season with the big league club, that would have happened only if he had been lights out this spring.

At this point, they'll probably ease him into duty and hope he can come up mid-summer and be at his best.

 

Souhan: The bullpen is a mess | StarTribune.com

[Mike Sixel]

Well, that sucks. Another reason not to go in the first two months of the year if true.

[Halsey Hall]

His locker is empty this morning, so he's probably made the long walk to the minors. He didn't look very good last night. I'll bet he didn't walk alone this morning either the way some looked.

[Willihammer]

I think the arb clock is sort of an afterthought with Gibson at this point.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I think the arb clock is sort of an afterthought with Gibson at this point.

 

It certainly is after this ST. While I argued that it might be a good idea to stall Gibson's clock a bit, most of my argument was based on the fact that he hasn't pitched much since TJ surgery and his time in AAA before surgery was completely mediocre.

 

Too many people were counting on the guy to come back and be dominant too quickly. He's not Scott Baker. He's not even Mike Pelfrey. He has never pitched an MLB inning in his life. I'm still really high on the guy but I don't expect him to return to competition, vault to the highest level, and thrive in it right away.

[drjim]

I always thought the arb stuff was silly. If he was good enough to be in the rotation to start the season they should have rolled with him. Clearly he isn't there yet. So all the years of control/arb is going to work out anyways.

 

Terry Ryan said it best when asked earlier about whether arb/control would be a factor in decisions. He said let's see him make the team first.

[ALessKosherScott]

Too many people were counting on the guy to come back and be dominant too quickly. He's not Scott Baker. He's not even Mike Pelfrey. He has never pitched an MLB inning in his life. I'm still really high on the guy but I don't expect him to return to competition, vault to the highest level, and thrive in it right away.

 

I'd note that it's also harder for a guy who depends on his slider like Gibson to bounce back from TJ surgery than a guy who's all fastball like Pelfrey. It's not uncommon for a pitcher to come back from the surgery throwing harder than he did before because his arm is clean. But after a year off, having a feel for your secondary stuff--especially breaking pitches-- is another story.

 

Give him some time to get his feel back in the minors. If the Twins handle him smartly, they'll make him work on his change-up first, then slowly work more sliders back into the mix.

[Nick Nelson]

Too many people were counting on the guy to come back and be dominant too quickly. He's not Scott Baker. He's not even Mike Pelfrey.

 

I dunno. Gibson is now 18 months removed from the surgery so you would hope he'd be back to about where he was before, at which point he was pretty much MLB-ready. The command issues at this point are a tad concerning, IMO, particularly considering that location is such a huge part of his game.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'd note that it's also harder for a guy who depends on his slider like Gibson to bounce back from TJ surgery than a guy who's all fastball like Pelfrey. It's not uncommon for a pitcher to come back from the surgery throwing harder than he did before because his arm is clean. But after a year off, having a feel for your secondary stuff--especially breaking pitches-- is another story.

 

Give him some time to get his feel back in the minors. If the Twins handle him smartly, they'll make him work on his change-up first, then slowly work more sliders back into the mix.

 

That's a good point. Gibson relies on that slider a lot and from everything I've seen and ready, that's the last pitch to come back after TJS.

 

Sure, he's throwing harder but if that slider isn't working, his effectiveness will be limited (or non-existant) against MLB hitters.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I dunno. Gibson is now 18 months removed from the surgery so you would hope he'd be back to about where he was before, at which point he was pretty much MLB-ready. The command issues at this point are a tad concerning, IMO, particularly considering that location is such a huge part of his game.

 

But do we know which pitches he's struggling to control? If it's his secondary stuff, that shouldn't be entirely unexpected. He just doesn't have that many innings under his belt since the surgery. Sure, it has been 18 months since TJS, but only about 100 innings, the majority of which came against younger and inferior competition.

[CDog]

But do we know which pitches he's struggling to control? If it's his secondary stuff, that shouldn't be entirely unexpected. He just doesn't have that many innings under his belt since the surgery. Sure, it has been 18 months since TJS, but only about 100 innings, the majority of which came against younger and inferior competition.

 

I thought I remember in one of the articles on the game where he threw the three wild pitches in an inning that it mentioned they were all fastballs. I don't have time to try and find which one it was, though. And I also thought after the AFL that he said something along the lines of command of his fastball, but I'm less sure of that memory.

[Otto von Ballpark]

This arb/FA clock stuff is very silly. I made the point on an Aaron Hicks thread: if the player is any good at the MLB level, you will almost certainly buy out most of his arb years and maybe a FA year or two with a long-term contract. That strategy will probably be cheaper than delaying his service time anyway.

 

The Joe Mauer example upthread shows this: he started 2004 in the majors, thus was on track for free agency after 2009. However, he signed a long-term deal after 2006 which bought out his first free agency season (2010) at a very reasonable price.

 

But what if the Twins kept in the minors just a bit in 2004, a month or so to delay his first free agency until after 2010? A month in the minors doesn't automatically mean Mauer accepts a deal through 2011. Best case odds are, he signs the same contract at the same time and still hits FA after 2010; the Twins gain nothing, and lose his services for part of 2004 (we obviously don't have hindsight about his injury in this example).

 

What if the Twins kept him in the minors even further in 2004, several months to push his first arbitration eligibility until after 2007? They could save a few bucks in 2007, for sure -- they would have been able to renew him close to the minimum, if they had wanted. But if they do that, I suspect he goes year-to-year in his contracts, and gets a nice boost in arbitration after 2008 and an astronomical one after 2009, and probably makes more than our long-term scenario above. I'd say the best case scenario here, he signs a similar deal after 2006 or 2007, with a slight discount on each season, for a total savings of no more than $8 million through 2010. But to get that "savings", the Twins had to do without his services for a significant portion of 2004, which could have pissed Mauer off and hurt future negotiations, put their 2004 playoff odds in jeopardy, caused them to pass up the AJ Pierzynski trade the previous offseason, etc. (And with the floating date of "super-2" arbitration eligibility, there's a chance that this method doesn't actually delay his arbitration and you save nothing over the options above.)

 

And this is all for a superstar-level player. For a mid-tier guy, obviously the potential costs and saving would be reduced significantly. I'm just not seeing how this specifically is going to be a big factor in personnel decisions for the Twins. Although they generally seem to be very conservative with players/promotions, I don't think this is one of the reasons.

[Otto von Ballpark]

That arb-clock rant aside, Gibson to AAA this year shouldn't even be controversial. The guy pitched 28 innings last year, with only 6 of those above A-ball, and he wasn't entirely sharp at AAA even before the surgery in 2011.

 

At the very least, you let him work his way back from surgery a bit longer without the added pressure of a major league debut to worry about.

[CDog]

But do we know which pitches he's struggling to control? If it's his secondary stuff, that shouldn't be entirely unexpected. He just doesn't have that many innings under his belt since the surgery. Sure, it has been 18 months since TJS, but only about 100 innings, the majority of which came against younger and inferior competition.

 

As a confirmation of my last reply, it was in several articles that yes, it was the fastball command he had trouble with last week, and in talking about that he compared it to the AFL where he also had trouble with locating the fastball. In the recent spring game with all the wild pitches, he actually said his secondary stuff was fine. Carry on.

[ALessKosherScott]

But do we know which pitches he's struggling to control? If it's his secondary stuff, that shouldn't be entirely unexpected. He just doesn't have that many innings under his belt since the surgery. Sure, it has been 18 months since TJS, but only about 100 innings, the majority of which came against younger and inferior competition.

 

I don't think it necessarily depends on which pitch he's struggling to throw either. If his slider isn't working, odds are hitters will be sitting on a fastball. So to compensate, the pitcher will try to overthrow his fastball and lose control of it. It's kind of akin to a heroin bender that way. Once one thing is out-of-whack for a pitcher, things have a tendency to spin out of control.

 

Gibson was probably going to need some time to right himself. It's fine that he's doing it in Rochester.