How Soon Do the Twins Need a Fifth Starter?

[Greglw3]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:38 AM, chpettit19 said:

I'm guessing they carry 15 pitchers for the first month (as far as I know there's no rules on having to carry at least 14 position players of the 28 roster spots). I think we see a lot of multi-inning relief appearances from the likes of Cotton, Jax, and Thorpe at least. The Twins currently have 17 arms on the 40-man who haven't been optioned or placed on the 60-day. I'd guess Winder, Duran, and Romero are fighting over 2 spots. Or if none of them earn it Romero goes back on waivers and someone like Faria or Smeltzer takes that spot. But I'm guessing we see 15 pitchers come north to start the year and there's a lot of short starts backed by long relief outings for the first month of the season.

The talk about having any reliance on Jax, Cotton or Thorpe really scares me. You never know in baseball....maybe Jax can make a viable 1 inning reliever. I’m more comfortable with Duran and Winder. I think it would be like rolling snakeeyes 5 times in a row if Bundy, Ober, Ryan, Winder all were below 4.00 ERA pitchers this year. I’d love it but it would go against baseball history big time.  It’s a tough problem to solve at this point. I keep visiting MLBTRs several times a day!