Chris Archer

[Doctor Gast]

I remember the 1st time I saw Johan Santana, I believed he could become an ace. He had a impressive 4-seam FB and very good slider but later w/MN he developed an elite circle change-up and the rest is history. With Chris Archer I had the same feeling, he reminded me a lot of Santana. He had the same 4-seamer, a better slider (IMO), he already had a circle change-up and he was a work horse. At TB he was very good but still had things to improve much like Santana did. 

Archer was hyped up and TB of coarse put Archer on the trading block. MN was  very interested and itwould have been a perfect fit. Archer could have continued to develop and become that ace and win a lot games for the Twins. Alas TB was asking too much and he ended up at PIT. At PIT they couldn't help him but instead of having him pitch to his strength, they coached him to focus on his lesser pitch, the cutter. His time at PIT was inevitabally a disaster and later injured his shoulder which he missed a good part of 2019 and all of covid 2020 .

TB picked him up in2021, after a long time of missed games and recovering from surgery he had a poor 1st game but after that in the American East he was dominate in every game in the 1st 3 innings. I'm sure his body was still weak because after 3 innings you see a steady decline and later injured his hip. 2022 he'd still be a perfect fit for the Twin's strategy as an opener. We don't need him to pitch more than 3 innings, while he's still regaining his endurance. Wes Johnson can add a few ticks on his FB, improve his slider and perfect his circle change-up and with time he could resemble the work horse of the past.

The Twins should have approached him awhile ago with a sales pitch of our strategy, how we can further develop him into an ace and a favorable creative minor league contract (that we could work w/ him during the lockout) which later become a MLB contract after spring training w/ an option. The clock is ticking and we are losing valuable time. I know many are down on him because of his stats at PIT but that wasn't his fault. He has a tremendous ceiling with low risk/high reward.

Below is his offseason video. He looked pretty good even this early and seems to mirror his pitches pretty well IMO. Sorry I couldn't transfer it but if you like you can see it on his twitter page. Thank You

 

[TwinsDr2021]

If nothing changes, I would much rather see (and by see I don't mean watching because I won't be) them using the multitude of prospects on the 40 man doing this than Archer or any other FA.

I don't want to the Twins to bring in any pitcher (non-relief) that can't be expected to pitch 5+ innings every game. Anybody they plan on bringing in that gives them less is just blocking prospects that are already too old to be in the minors and considered real prospects.

[Doctor Gast]

I'm happy, he'll surprise a lot of people if he's handled right. Nice contract just wished they had signed him much sooner, now he's behind. Looking forward to watch him pitch in a Twins uniform.

[baul0010]

On 3/18/2022 at 1:18 PM, TwinsDr2021 said:

If nothing changes, I would much rather see (and by see I don't mean watching because I won't be) them using the multitude of prospects on the 40 man doing this than Archer or any other FA.

I don't want to the Twins to bring in any pitcher (non-relief) that can't be expected to pitch 5+ innings every game. Anybody they plan on bringing in that gives them less is just blocking prospects that are already too old to be in the minors and considered real prospects.

At least Thorpe was the castoff.  I don't think the Twins think he has what it takes anyway.

[twins_89]

I'm fine with giving Archer a chance, but if his ERA is 6+ after 6-8 starts the team need to let him go sooner rather than later. If we're going to get poor starting pitching, I'd at least like the innings to go to guys who can use the opportunity to develop for the future.

[Doctor Gast]

Archer adds to our depth in the rotation. It's good to have Archer as plan A and have the younger prospects as plan B rather have our prospects thrown in the deep end w/o a life line. Besides Archer becomes that role model and mentor that our young pitchers really need.

[Doctor Gast]

We are sitting pretty good right now. I believe the FO is still looking for a trade  I hope  a front line SP. We still need a true MLB ready CF Buxton sub 4th OF, (TB) Margot (last year arbritration) and Kiermaier could be available cheap via trade because FA has been picked clean.

I give Archer credit making this happen, because he constantly updated Falvey on his progress.

[cheeseheadgophfan]

I thought he looked pretty good today for his first outing of the spring.  Was hitting 94-95 with his fastball.  Seemed like a tight strike zone, but i'm optimistic he'll be an above average starter......

[Unwinder]

Yeah, I was pretty relieved to see that he seems to have gotten his velocity and command back, even though he got somewhat clobbered, I was mostly worried about him not having the tools.

[stringer bell]

41 minutes ago, Unwinder said:

Yeah, I was pretty relieved to see that he seems to have gotten his velocity and command back, even though he got somewhat clobbered, I was mostly worried about him not having the tools.

I don’t think the results are as important as velocity and command. Low to mid 90s on FB is decent. The next question would be bite on breaking pitches I guess. 

[twins_89]

If Archer can maintain his fastball in the 94-95 mph range, I'm much more optimistic about his chances to succeed. I was worried he would come in with a 91-92 mph fastball, which I think would have led to him being gone by June.

[Doctor Gast]

3 hours ago, cheeseheadgophfan said:

I thought he looked pretty good today for his first outing of the spring.  Was hitting 94-95 with his fastball.  Seemed like a tight strike zone, but i'm optimistic he'll be an above average starter......

Thanks I couldn't see how fast he was throwing, 94- 95 is not too bad. For his 1st outing he was ok but he had some trouble at the top the order with time he'll get sharper.

[gil4]

4 hours ago, cheeseheadgophfan said:

I thought he looked pretty good today for his first outing of the spring.  Was hitting 94-95 with his fastball.  Seemed like a tight strike zone, but i'm optimistic he'll be an above average starter......

Good to hear a positive report from someone watching, because the box score wasn't pretty.  

[Twodogs]

16 hours ago, cheeseheadgophfan said:

I thought he looked pretty good today for his first outing of the spring.  Was hitting 94-95 with his fastball.  Seemed like a tight strike zone, but i'm optimistic he'll be an above average starter......

I'm glad to hear that the velo looks good.  I was worried because he had that Thoracic outlet surgery that seemed to put Phil Hughes to sleep.

[Doctor Gast]

13 hours ago, gil4 said:

Good to hear a positive report from someone watching, because the box score wasn't pretty.  

Yeah, stats can be very deceiving. Wes Johnson has had very little time to work with Archer. Probally Wes wants to add a click or 2 on his FB. Looks like Archer has done that with some command against the 2021 WS Champs. Archer isn't stretched out yet and still is trying to get 100% w/o over doing it. Next he needs to work on his slider and perfect circle change up (if Santana could help with that, it'd be great).

On the other hand if you look at Cave's stats and you'd think he had a great ST, But if you see that all his ABs are against bottom dweller PIT bottom of the barrel pitchers, they are about the softest ABs you can get plus he's had 2 extra weeks of conditioning and working on his game. So his stats aren't that impressive. When looking at stats you have to look at the conditions and factors.

[PatPfund]

It was a solid first impression for me. Think he tossed 50+ pitches, and with good velocity. He got knocked around a bit, but that is possibly due as much to rust as anything else.

Upside of all of his pre-signing throwing is he seems to be strong and  "stretched", but the downside is you are throwing more than pitching; hopefully further game action fine-tunes the pitching instincts out. Might be a rough outing or two ahead, but if he stays healthy and strong, I'd gut it out even if it is in the regular season. More upside here than most the other rotation options.

[Brandon]

Too bad we can’t DL him to give him 2 or 3 minor league starts to build up and hone in a little bit more.

[Doctor Gast]

Archer looked pretty good for only having a 3 inning ST outing under his belt. Can't wait until he finally gets stretched out.

Archer looked more Minnesotan than me with only short sleeves and shirt open on this cold day.

[Rosterman]

1 hour ago, Doctor Gast said:

Archer looked pretty good for only having a 3 inning ST outing under his belt. Can't wait until he finally gets stretched out.

Archer looked more Minnesotan than me with only short sleeves and shirt open on this cold day.

It actually wasn't uncomfortably cold at the stadium tonight. Just wet!

[laloesch]

On 4/1/2022 at 10:30 PM, gil4 said:

Good to hear a positive report from someone watching, because the box score wasn't pretty.  

yeah the bullpen was just awful.

[Eicemann]

14 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Archer looked pretty good for only having a 3 inning ST outing under his belt. Can't wait until he finally gets stretched out.

Archer looked more Minnesotan than me with only short sleeves and shirt open on this cold day.

It appears that a big reason that the Twins chose Archer over signing Cueto or re-signing Pineda is that Archer kept himself in major league ready pitching shape.  The former FAs reportedly of interest to the Twins in the offseason are still conditioning forMLB play for MiLB teams. CWS in particular could have used Cueto by now with both Lynn & Giolito on the DL. 

[CRF]

Archer didn't pitch that badly, and if he can keep that up for the most part, it was a good signing. I haven't seen that much of him the last few years, so I don't know if he's been...for lack of a better word..."demonstrative", like he was last night. I don't care for all the jumping around and posturing. Maybe I'm just old fashioned when it comes to that. To me, that can get the other team fired up, not to mention getting the ump(s) ticked off. Just get guys out and stop all the extra stuff.