Wanted: Your thoughts about Randy Dobnak

[sun]

The last I read was that he's been invited to spring training. Does anyone else have hopes that Randy will be able to make a successful comeback? If he could make a comeback which do you think that he could become,  a starter again, a long reliever, or just a reliever? What are your overall thoughts about Randy Dobnak making a comeback? I love to root 4 underdogs!

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/players/2870041/randy-dobnak/

[Vanimal46]

I’ll be rooting for him, but he will have a higher hill to climb back into the majors than other prospects. When he was healthy he was a very serviceable back of the rotation pitcher. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'll always root for Randy Dobnak.

As for him making a comeback, hard to say. He has the stuff to be a marginal MLB starter but the finger injury and its persistence has me more than a little bit confused.

[Mike Sixel]

Rooting for him! He's a bullpen guy for Minnesota given their depth this year, but might be a starter on other teams. I would not be shocked if he's traded if he shows he's healthy this spring. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

Rooting for Dobnak. I think there could be a multi-inning reliever/swing man role for him on this team in ‘23. Some of his value is he may not be in the development track like SWR who can come in for 3-4 relief innings make spot starts, in the early part of the season that’s really valuable when not everyone is stretched out and Maeda/Mahle might not be quite 100%

[August J Gloop]

Everything about how Dob got to the show is a great story. The Injury has been a real puzzler, but if he's pitching well, everyone should be so happy. 

[CRF]

Always liked him and I hope he can overcome the finger issue, but I don't know if he has a role on the team now. Maybe a trade chip?

[Unwinder]

Yeah I like him a lot as a person and as a story but I have no idea what his role is anymore. I think it's best to view him as a sunk cost with a chance to surprise us. Extra pitching is a good problem to have.

[Doctor Gast]

Hopefully he has ditched his new slider that they were pushing that caused his finger problem. The old Dobnak had a pretty good GB rate, many teams could be in the market for him if he's able to regain his old self. But I doubt the Twin will need him.

[AceWrigley]

He's not on the 40-man roster so I guess we hope he has recovered from his finger injury and can pitch regularly for the Saints and be ready if we need him. Don't dis The Dobnak.

[Matthew Lenz]

Not good enough to pitch on a competitve team.

[dxpavelka]

The question I've been waiting for someone to answer since he got here is "Has there ever been an undrafted college grad reach the big leagues quicker?"

[stringer bell]

Marginal stuff, so he’s got to have excellent command keep hitters off balance. I really doubt that he’ll get back to MLB, but I’m pulling for him. 

[Joey Self]

Not sure how any of us could have a semi-intelligent guess as to how to answer the question before he throws in spring training.  

And as I shoot for at least semi-intelligent, I'll wait. 

[wsnydes]

I love a good Hollywood story and I'm rooting for the guy, but I think his days as a starter are done.  I need to see a lot before putting him on the active roster in any capacity.

[Brandon]

I would like to see him rise to be our #3 starter.  Not because of injuries either but because he is better then everyone and we have even more starters giving us a starter to trade for more prospects.  (Do we trade a successful Dobnak given the other 3 free agents to be in our rotation)?

[GKuehl]

While the Dobnak story was a lot fun a few years ago, his chances of joining the big league club this year are slim unless our pitching staff is decimated by injuries (further lessening his chances to impact the Twins is that Dobnak is not on the 40-man roster). Rather than converting Dobby to a reliever (where his ceiling is a middle reliever at best), I would prefer we keep him stretched out as a staring pitcher in St. Paul. 

At this point, he's probably 11th in the SP pecking order behind Gray, Lopez, Ryan, Mahle, Maeda, Ober, Paddack, Winder, Varland, SWR. He might even be behind Headrick and Balazovic, both of whom are on the 40-man. 

In the bullpen hierarchy, Henriquez and Sands would likely each get a chance before Dobnak as well. 

[sun]

I sure wish that Dobnak could learn how to pitch a good knuckleball. Then he'd be in like Flynn. 😀. 

[Beast]

Guy came from nowhere and worked himself into $10M and a postseason start at Yankee Stadium.

No matter how things go from here on out, things went pretty darn well for that guy.  Pretty cool story.

[Riverbrian]

In 2018... Martin Perez... Came off the disabled list in July and he threw 85.1 innings (15 starts - 23 games pitched) for the Texas Rangers. His ERA was 6.22. 

In 2019 the Twins signed Martin Perez to a 4 million 1 year contract with a team option for 2020 at 7.5M. He threw 165.1 Innings for the Twins... 29 starts and he produced a 5.12 ERA. The 5.12 ERA was actually worse than 5.12 because Martin Perez had a decent April and May that year. During his first 58 Innings his ERA checked in at 2.95 and we thought... "What a great pickup".

From May 30, 2019 to his last start in a Twins uniform on September 29th. He Tacked on 107.1 innings to the tune of a 6.29 ERA. The Bloom was off the rose and this club was getting ready for the playoffs. Perez kept his spot in the rotation right until the final day of the season and then he was not placed on the playoff roster. 

These thoughts of Martin Perez infect my thoughts of Randy Dobnak to this current day.

The Twins gave Perez every single start until the playoffs when they decided Naaah... Can't trust him. The Twins held Dobnak out of the starting rotation until the playoffs saying... Naaah... Can't trust him.

Then BOOM Randy Dobnak is starting game two out of necessity. The Twins said that we didn't believe in you in September but in Game Two of the playoffs... well... we believe in you now!

Dobnak should have spent September getting the innings that Perez got so he could show he could pitch in the majors or show that he can't. Waiting until game two of the playoffs to make that decision was a terrible decision. 

My thoughts of Martin Perez as it relates to Randy Dobnak are my current fears about Joey Gallo as it relates to Trevor Larnach or Nick Gordon or Matt Wallner.  

Will those who are demonstrably struggling in real life be allowed to continue to struggle while others who might or might not struggle are not allowed to demonstrate?

Precedent has been set with this front office with Perez and Dobnak. Perez was supposed to be better I assume but he wasn't and they forced it... they gave Perez every second of the clock to show that he was better and he failed badly enough that they couldn't put him on the playoff roster.

Will they do this again? 

What was the Topic again? 

Oh Yeah... Dobnak... He was good in 2019... Don't know if he still is. 

 

[sampleSizeOfOne]

21 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

Oh Yeah... Dobnak... He was good in 2019... Don't know if he still is. 

Pretty sure he's not evil...

I'm rooting for him, for sure.

And i think he can make it back. Andrew Albers did something, Dobnak can too.

But i'm not expecting him to make it 1-18 all by himself.

 

(and while i cherry picked the tidbit what provoke me to respond, thanks for larger context of that situation. Personel decisions are always complicated, but i appreciate this perspective.

[by jiminy]

9 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

In 2018... Martin Perez... Came off the disabled list in July and he threw 85.1 innings (15 starts - 23 games pitched) for the Texas Rangers. His ERA was 6.22. 

In 2019 the Twins signed Martin Perez to a 4 million 1 year contract with a team option for 2020 at 7.5M. He threw 165.1 Innings for the Twins... 29 starts and he produced a 5.12 ERA. The 5.12 ERA was actually worse than 5.12 because Martin Perez had a decent April and May that year. During his first 58 Innings his ERA checked in at 2.95 and we thought... "What a great pickup".

From May 30, 2019 to his last start in a Twins uniform on September 29th. He Tacked on 107.1 innings to the tune of a 6.29 ERA. The Bloom was off the rose and this club was getting ready for the playoffs. Perez kept his spot in the rotation right until the final day of the season and then he was not placed on the playoff roster. 

These thoughts of Martin Perez infect my thoughts of Randy Dobnak to this current day.

The Twins gave Perez every single start until the playoffs when they decided Naaah... Can't trust him. The Twins held Dobnak out of the starting rotation until the playoffs saying... Naaah... Can't trust him.

Then BOOM Randy Dobnak is starting game two out of necessity. The Twins said that we didn't believe in you in September but in Game Two of the playoffs... well... we believe in you now!

Dobnak should have spent September getting the innings that Perez got so he could show he could pitch in the majors or show that he can't. Waiting until game two of the playoffs to make that decision was a terrible decision. 

My thoughts of Martin Perez as it relates to Randy Dobnak are my current fears about Joey Gallo as it relates to Trevor Larnach or Nick Gordon or Matt Wallner.  

Will those who are demonstrably struggling in real life be allowed to continue to struggle while others who might or might not struggle are not allowed to demonstrate?

Precedent has been set with this front office with Perez and Dobnak. Perez was supposed to be better I assume but he wasn't and they forced it... they gave Perez every second of the clock to show that he was better and he failed badly enough that they couldn't put him on the playoff roster.

Will they do this again? 

What was the Topic again? 

Oh Yeah... Dobnak... He was good in 2019... Don't know if he still is. 

 

I thought that at the time too. But given that Martin Perez just went an entire season with a 2.89 ERA and signed for $19.65 million dollars I am not quite so ready to dump on the Twins for maybe seeing something in him I didn't. 

[Otaknam]

I never understood why Dobnak was given a nice contract extension by the front office when his list of accomplishments was so sparse. He was basically a four inning pitcher, especially with “Four Innings and the Hook Baldelli” as the manager. If he makes a comeback it should be in long relief, which I hope he achieves. 

[Muppet]

2 hours ago, by jiminy said:

I thought that at the time too. But given that Martin Perez just went an entire season with a 2.89 ERA and signed for $19.65 million dollars I am not quite so ready to dump on the Twins for maybe seeing something in him I didn't. 

As someone who is mostly only able to "watch" baseball on a MLB game-day computer simulation where blue dots are hits and red dots are strikes, one of the things I'll never get to see is the quality of the pitcher. Perez' downslide looks the same as Dobnak's 'rising star' innings. They are both just red and blue dots.  Seeing actual pitchers pitch is maybe the thing that makes teams decide that their faltering starter haws 2.89 ERA potential. 

[farmerguychris]

If his finger is healthy - are the ANY Twins fans who wouldn't prefer him and his ability to go 2-3 innings in the pen instead of Pagan?  Hopefully has a great spring and forces Baldelli to make this happen.

[Riverbrian]

3 hours ago, by jiminy said:

I thought that at the time too. But given that Martin Perez just went an entire season with a 2.89 ERA and signed for $19.65 million dollars I am not quite so ready to dump on the Twins for maybe seeing something in him I didn't. 

My assumption is that Perez is one of those pitchers that looks good in the data... Spin Rates and such. He looks like the guy who should be tossing a sub three ERA so teams keep throwing him out there until he becomes it. 

The Twins, The Red Sox and the Rangers have all rolled the dice on him since 2018 despite never really having decent numbers on the mound. There has to be a reason for that and I assume it is because he looks like someone who should be a good pitcher.  

Yeah, he was great with the Rangers last year. Fantastic actually and they sent forth a him a qualifying offer as a result.

However, he wasn't that good in 2021 or 2020 with the Red Sox. 

2019 with the Twins

He struggled in 2018, 2017 and was just average in 2016 and 2015. You give a guy enough chances, he might eventually work out but that is a lot of failure until he has that year like last year and if it takes that long you have to wonder if it was worth it. In the meantime, you are getting poor results and keeping someone else off the mound. 

It wasn't worth it for the Twins since he was a healthy scratch for the playoffs and that mound time should have been allocated to someone like Dobnak who was hanging Zero's in September when we needed zeroes hung. Dobnak may not have worked out but you would have a better idea with some more mound time.  

 

 

[Nine of twelve]

As is the case with every player on the roster, I hope he performs way better than I expect. I expect him to be a middling AAA pitcher.