Horrible pitching

[chpettit19]

3 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

Ridiculous.  I always wanted Rich Hill to stay here.

You say I am using 20/20 hindsight, yet saying my hindsight is wrong?  I said before that you seem to be saying any random thing that pops into your mind.  Calm down, my opinions are as legitimate as yours are.

May and Hill are not the only guys from last year who would be helping this year.  Nearly every pitcher who left last year is doing better now, even Odorizzi is playing better than most of the Twins pitching staff.

So think about it.  The Twins had a top pitching staff, let everyone go, and those players went on to be even better.  This isn't a problem to you because the previous years seemed OK?  Strange.  This should be a problem to you regardless.

Ridiculous? I already posted the stats of the guys that left. Odorizzi has found his footing and is doing well. Romo was just as bad as Colome to start the season and is now about average. May has been solid. Clippard hasn't thrown a single pitch. Hill has been good. I'm saying your hindsight is wrong because you're making statements like "Nearly every pitcher who left last year is doing better now" when it is simply not true. Wisler got cut with a 6+ ERA for goodness sake.

"Those players went on to be even better." Who? Which of those pitchers have gone on to be even better? Odo? Ok you can have that 1 even though he's not markedly better than when he was healthy here. Hill? Nope, was better last year than this year in basically every stat. Wisler, as I've mentioned multiple times now got cut. Romo is worse in basically every statistical way this year. Trevor May is slightly better than last year, but is basically the exact same as he has been the last few years here. Clippard, again, hasn't thrown a single pitch this year. 

You opinion is certainly as legitimate as mine, but there's no statistical evidence to back yours up. The moves didn't work this year and there were certainly some that were questionable at the time (Shoemaker), but there were none that gave off warning signs of the entire staff being this brutally bad.

[wsnydes]

11 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

While mistakes were obviously made and I disagreed with some of those moves, the bolded is hyperbolic and incorrect.

Rich Hill is not better this season, his ERA is way up from the shortened 2020 season. Trevor May is roughly the same guy, maybe having a slightly better season, hard to get a read on a reliever in 25-30 innings. Matt Wisler is not in the league AFAIK. Sergio Romo is markedly worse. Clippard isn't pitching. Odorizzi is better... I guess? At least he's on the mound, which he wasn't last season (I wanted Odorizzi back, doubly so after he signed that contract).

I believe we can criticize the front office for making flat-out incorrect decisions such as "Matt Shoemaker over anybody" and "JA Happ over Jake Odorizzi" without making false statements to get that point across.

FWIW... @Vanimal46 posted this a few minutes ago in the "Ex Twins thread".

"Wisler update on the Rays… 11 appearances 10.2 IP, 0.84 ERA, 14:2 K:BB"

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just now, wsnydes said:

FWIW... @Vanimal46 posted this a few minutes ago in the "Ex Twins thread".

"Wisler update on the Rays… 11 appearances 10.2 IP, 0.84 ERA, 14:2 K:BB"

Good for him, glad he found a spot again.

Completely unsurprised face it is with the Rays.

[wsnydes]

Just now, Brock Beauchamp said:

Good for him, glad he found a spot again.

Completely unsurprised face it is with the Rays.

Agreed.  The Rays have a knack for these things.  

I was in the camp that wanted the Twins to bring back at least two of three relievers (Clippard, Wisler and May).  Obviously, letting Clippard go has worked out.  Even with the seasons that May and Wisler have had, they're an upgrade (even if slightly) over what was brought in.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, wsnydes said:

Agreed.  The Rays have a knack for these things.  

I was in the camp that wanted the Twins to bring back at least two of three relievers (Clippard, Wisler and May).  Obviously, letting Clippard go has worked out.  Even with the seasons that May and Wisler have had, they're an upgrade (even if slightly) over what was brought in.

The only one I was sorry to see go was May. He’s a legitimate late inning reliever while the other two have much more of a smoke and mirrors vibe. That doesn’t mean they can’t succeed but I sure don’t trust them much. 

[wsnydes]

3 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The only one I was sorry to see go was May. He’s a legitimate late inning reliever while the other two have much more of a smoke and mirrors vibe. That doesn’t mean they can’t succeed but I sure don’t trust them much. 

Yup, I can see that.  May was the one I was most sorry to see go too.  I just didn't want them to dismantle the bullpen to the extent they did.  That may not be the greatest reason, but I think that continuity has its benefits, particularly for the manager and his staff. 

[USAFChief]

I say this having not contributed: the comments in this thread are fantastic and a reason why TD is a great community. Thanks to all.

[Dodecahedron]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

While mistakes were obviously made and I disagreed with some of those moves, the bolded is hyperbolic and incorrect.

Yes, I agree I misspoke there.  I meant to say that almost all of those players are better this year than who the Twins have now.

[Brock Beauchamp]

49 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Yes, I agree I misspoke there.  I meant to say that almost all of those players are better this year than who the Twins have now.

And that is undoubtedly true, as almost every pitching choice the Twins made this offseason wasn't just bad, it was terrible.

[jorgenswest]

I wondered how the salaries and WAR compared. How much better off would the situation be?

2020

Odorizzi, Hill, Romo and May will come in at 22.25 million. They have combined for 1.6 WAR.

2021

Happ, Shoemaker, Colome and Robles cost the Twins 17 million. They each have a negative WAR and combine at -4.1 WAR. 

Not surprising that is almost a 6 WAR swing and in hind sight well worth reallocating 5.25 more million towards pitching. I suppose they could have spent the extra and found a less expensive option at shortstop. There is also no guarantee that they would have stayed with the Twins at the contract they signed elsewhere. They could have kept Romo but he would have been more expensive. Would May or Odorizzi taken a similar offer from the Twins?

Unfortunately those 5.7 WAR would not be enough to make the Twins competitive this year and is mostly a result from how truly awful the Twins four have been and little to do with the positive impact the four who have left have made on their current teams. 
 

*Odorizzi’s contract can be debated with incentives and options. I used the Astros obligation of the minimum plus buyout. My resource for the information is baseball reference,

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

I wondered how the salaries and WAR compared. How much better off would the situation be?

2020

Odorizzi, Hill, Romo and May will come in at 22.25 million. They have combined for 1.6 WAR.

2021

Happ, Shoemaker, Colome and Robles cost the Twins 17 million. They each have a negative WAR and combine at -4.1 WAR. 

Now do this for WPA.

Wait, don't.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Okay, so I was curious how that played out using WPA.

2020
0.2, 0.4, -0.1, 0.5 = 1.0

2021
-0.5, -1.3, 0.6, -2.4 = -3.6

****ing yikes.

[jorgenswest]

Nice. Looks like it tells the same story. The Twins made disastrous additions to their pitching staff. It also appears that the more expensive status quo option would not have made an impact towards a competitive season. It might have put us ahead of the Tigers though.

[Brock Beauchamp]

9 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

Nice. Looks like it tells the same story. The Twins made disastrous additions to their pitching staff. It also appears that the more expensive status quo option would not have made an impact towards a competitive season. It might have put us ahead of the Tigers though.

I honestly expected WPA to be worse than that but there were two starting pitchers in that list and starting pitchers don't move the needle that much in WPA so I guess I should have expected that result. Starters generally either pitch well and get a small WPA bump or they pitch badly and their team never has a chance to win, which means they only went from 50% chance to 0% chance.

The huge pitching swings in WPA come when your team is on the verge of victory and you snatch defeat instead, which can give a single pitcher close to 100% of the credit for the loss. Hence Colome having that monstrous -2.4 WPA.

[KirbyDome89]

19 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

The question some are asking is....why don't previous years matter in assessing their abilities? Sometimes stuff just doesn't work, even if you do most things right. That seems to be the case with pitching (other than signing both Happ and Shoemaker, it seemed ok to most before the implosion).

 

15 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

Cleveland hasn’t invested high draft capital in pitching either, and I’m sure Falvey has that philosophy in mind. They developed talent from unlikely sources like minor trades, waiver wire, and late round picks. They earned the benefit of the doubt IMO after they cobbled together competitive pitching staffs with spare parts. Unfortunately we backed the wrong horses in the race this year.

. @Mike Sixelhas mentioned this several times…. It’s really hard to be right every year when you’re replacing 2-3 starters and half of the bullpen. 

I don't agree wit the OP. I also don't think the current state of the Twins is a single season of backing the wrong horses or plain bad luck. If this is the on field product in year 5-6 then my guess is it's a symptom of a larger issue. 

There's real debate about how right this FO has been on the players they've brought in, particularly when it comes to pitching. If we're crediting the FO for team ERA the last couple years, what's the answer for the hard regression we've seen from multiple contributors? Career years from Rogers, Duffey, and May covered up a lot of inconsistency in that '19 bullpen, and a 60 game schedule with 2/3 played within the division in '20 makes it difficult to ascertain much. I wouldn't ding the FO too harshly for the regression, but I do feel subsequent backlash should match the praise they received. This team has struggled beyond the top half of the rotation every single year this FO has been here. They got a pass early on when the team wasn't expected to be any good, but we watched Randy Dobnak start a playoff game. Sure, Pineda makes that start if he isn't suspended, and no FO can predict that happening, but your failsafe was a guy who had made 3 actual starts prior to that game.

If the goal was to strike gold on the waiver wire or via minor trades we could've/should've seen something by now. I guess the jury is still somewhat out on the late round selections, but if that's what we're counting on to fill out the rotation I think it speaks volumes. I'm 100% on board with you guys when it comes to the difficulty in consistently replacing key cogs, and I've said it for a while. It's a flawed approach, and if you're struggling in the talent identification & development departments you get this season. 

 

[Major League Ready]

On 7/7/2021 at 3:06 PM, chpettit19 said:

I guess my question is did you feel this way last year when they had the 4th best ERA in baseball? Or the year before when they were 9th best in baseball? 

This regime took over after 2016. In 2016 the Twins finished 29th in baseball in ERA. Since then they've gone 19th, 22nd, 9th, 4th and now the wheels have completely fallen off and this year is a disaster. Team ERA went from 5.08 in 2016 to 4.59, 4.50, 4.18, 3.58. Now we're back up to 5.02.

So as they built their system and brought the team from one of the worst staffs in the league to top 10 did you feel scouting and/or coaching were substandard? This year is total system failure and the staff is an embarrassment, but there's a lot of 20/20 hindsight and ignoring of the last 4 years going around Twins territory these days.

But we want to complain about this year!  It's hard to do that when you keep posting facts.  Then Mike points out that Lynn did not want to be here or that this year is a significant aberration for Gibson.  We want to ignore anything that gets in the way of blaming the FO.  Players don't get injured or play poorly.  We can sign anyone we like even when they don't want to be here. It's all a matter of management making bad decisions.  Isn't this obvious?

[sampleSizeOfOne]

The subject makes me think of Gloucester's August and Horribles Parade (which is approaching its centennial? so not a young institution), and it isn't even August yet...

 

Personally, i am still unreasonably optimistic about our pitching. We'll get there eventually.

 

Er, that would be Ancient and Horribles:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_and_Horribles_Parade

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

On 7/7/2021 at 3:06 PM, chpettit19 said:

there's a lot of 20/20 hindsight and ignoring of the last 4 years

I do think it's easier to just assume complaints are all hindsight, than to go back and look or admit that a lot of people here have been concerned with the pitching for a long time, even back in 2019.

Here's one comment from Aug 1, 2019. I won't name the poster, he knows who he is (you'll probably find him sitting back in the corner with his arms folded and a scowl on his face)

• I give the Twins a "C" grade for this deadline. A passing score, but ain't gonna get them on the Honor Roll, nor help with that academic scholarship. The bullpen was a glaring need from day one, there's really no way to argue otherwise, and it was pretty easy to see it wasn't going to last the season. (link)

And of course pitching let them down in the Yankees series.

[chpettit19]

33 minutes ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

I do think it's easier to just assume complaints are all hindsight, than to go back and look or admit that a lot of people here have been concerned with the pitching for a long time, even back in 2019.

Here's one comment from Aug 1, 2019. I won't name the poster, he knows who he is (you'll probably find him sitting back in the corner with his arms folded and a scowl on his face)

• I give the Twins a "C" grade for this deadline. A passing score, but ain't gonna get them on the Honor Roll, nor help with that academic scholarship. The bullpen was a glaring need from day one, there's really no way to argue otherwise, and it was pretty easy to see it wasn't going to last the season. (link)

And of course pitching let them down in the Yankees series.

2019 when they had the 9th best staff in all of baseball? I know the playoffs and the losing streak is very troublesome for people, but the fact is you're talking about a very small sample size and that series was even smaller. Not to mention Pineda getting suspended wasn't something the FO could have foreseen and changed the complexion of that series a great deal. A series where they also scored 2.3 runs per game. Not sure what pitching staff you are expecting, but there aren't many out there that are winning a series with that kind of run support. In fact the Dodgers lead the league with a 3.37 ERA that year and there were only 6 total teams with an ERA under 4. Which means the Twins scored enough runs in 1 of 3 games to have won a game with the very best of the best pitching staffs in baseball. The whole team was pretty trash that series so saying "of course pitching let them down" is purposefully omitting quite a bit of information.

So you, and Chief, can feel as vindicated as you want this year, but the fact of the matter is the Twins had the 9th best ERA in baseball in 2019. They had the 4th best in the 2020 "season." That's my point. People are trying to use this season to say "see, I was right back in 2019 or 2020 when I complained about the pitching!" when really it doesn't change the fact that the pitching was actually quite good in those years. And I won't even throw out advanced stats because I know Chief doesn't like those anyways. He's a "classic stats" kind of guy so 9th best ERA in baseball should be enough to satisfy the question of the strength of the pitching that year.

I haven't seen anyone on here saying the FO crushed it this offseason or didn't make mistakes. I'm not even saying that. I'm saying the idea that they've shown no ability to build a staff and are basically just a continuation of what the staffs were like at the end of the Ryan regime is simply wrong. They had improved the staff every year for the last 4 years and then this year completely fell off the rails. There's suggestions on this site everyday that the FO is trash and should be fired. They complain that they've never built a quality pitching staff or improved the pitching at all. That's false and there's a whole internet of stats to prove it. I'm not saying they're perfect and shouldn't be questioned harshly about how things could go so poorly this year, but pretending that the previous 4 years didn't happen the way they did isn't helpful, productive, or logical. The Twins had a good staff in 2019. Clayton Kershaw is a great pitcher. Playoffs are a small sample size. Some fans on this site would complain about the FO having brought him in cuz he can't win in the playoffs. That just doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

@chpettit19thank you for your reply. 

It's not a matter of feeling vindicated. It's a discussion about the Twins, the state of their pitching, and how this organization needs to do vastly better in a hurry if it wants to remain relevant the next couple seasons. I think even the front office would tell you that.

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

@chpettit19thank you for your reply. 

It's not a matter of feeling vindicated. It's a discussion about the Twins, the state of their pitching, and how this organization needs to do vastly better in a hurry if it wants to remain relevant the next couple seasons. I think even the front office would tell you that.

I think everyone would agree they need to do vastly better than this year. Not sure how you could say anything but that. Where some of us differ is in whether or not they've shown they can do better and whether or not just going back to their previous results would be sufficient. My problem is with the narrative now being that they have no ability to identify pitching talent or build a staff when they've shown for years they can. That doesn't mean they didn't do a terrible job this year, but this 1 year shouldn't outweigh the previous 4. I don't have overly high hopes in next year's staff being adequate to win the division or WS, but I believe this FO has the ability to get them back where they need to be by 2023.