Griffin Jax, the two-headed monster

[Battle ur tail off]

I hope he continues well, but I doubt it. 

Flat out, his stuff isn't good enough. People claim Greg Maddox didn't throw hard, etc. Well guess what, his cutter could cut all the way across the plate and he ran it in there with great command and a hammer changeup. His stuff was elite.

[nicksaviking]

8 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

I really think he's got a chance to be a bullpen arm long term. I am less confident he's a starter, but hey, weirder things have happened. To Brock's other point..... Bring up more young bullpen arms! 

That babip is not sustainable, no way. 

If so, the Twins need to move him to the pen sooner rather than later. 
 

Way to many excellent BP arms end up being the-one-that-got-away because the original club wanted to keep playing the odds as a starter and dragged out the inevitable.

[Rosterman]

When the Twins brought him up, thought it was to start, but he sat and then came into games in relief. He has always been a starter. They is a certain routine established. A mindset. We see that he is, still, a starting pitcher.

 

Yes, he would be available if he could pitch relief, especially long relief with the potential to go thru a batting order more than once. But now he is pure rotation arm, and glad he is working his butt off.

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

If so, the Twins need to move him to the pen sooner rather than later. 
 

Way to many excellent BP arms end up being the-one-that-got-away because the original club wanted to keep playing the odds as a starter and dragged out the inevitable.

I've been preaching that for years .....

[blindeke]

11 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

I hope the Twins throw him back out there every fifth day for the remainder of the season and I'd like to see Rocco let him hit 100 pitches in a game.

The "100 pitches" thing is really aggravating to me. The reason the coaches are keeping the young pitchers on a short count is because none of them threw last year. It's pretty straight forward. You can't go from 0 to 100 in one season... 

[Thegrin]

Smalley reminded us that one of the benefits of pitching for the Twins is that Jax is working with a major league catcher.  I will keep watching Jax. I am not ready to put any trust in him.

[Brandon]

My concerns is the hits even out and Max doesn't lower the number of HRs hit off of him.  But as a 4th or 5th starter with an ERA between 4-4.5 would be fine especially if he can average close to 6 innings a start.

[old nurse]

A fallacy is that Maddox never struck anyone out. In an era where the average K% was down around 16% Maddison was around 19-20% in his prime. Other than Johnson none of the al time strikeout leaders has eye popping K%. They had innings. 

Jax is at small sample size and early career. Give him a chance to learn what not to do. What is now and in the minors may have nothing in common with the finished product

[MinnInPa]

encouraging starts lately ....yes.... but he is no more than a 4 or 5 starter at best.. Twins will wallow in mediocrity until they develop--or trade for --or sign quality 1 and 2 starters..there is not a Berrios on the way to even be a quality #2...Maeda and Pineda are very good 3 or 4 guys IMO on a playoff caliber team. we need pitchers that miss bats !!!

 

[70charger]

Dollars to donuts he's a reliever long term. That doesn't mean that he doesn't get anything out of starting now. He learns how to deal with different game scenarios, how to pace himself, how to reach back for extra velocity when he needs to. In short, there's no downside to him for starting this year.

The only possible downside is whether he's blocking another starting prospect, but I'd have Barnes on the chopping block before Jax anyway, so I doubt it. I say give him the rest of the year as a starter with an eye to a relief role in 2022.

[RpR]

1 hour ago, 70charger said:

The only possible downside is whether he's blocking another starting prospect, but I'd have Barnes on the chopping block before Jax anyway, so I doubt it. I say give him the rest of the year as a starter with an eye to a relief role in 2022.

Good grief -- Jax has the gonads to come up and win games, he should not be here because some other rookie could be pitching and losing games instead....