Baldelli and Gray

[Squirrel]

If you get the Athletic, this article is pretty good and gives a healthy perspective. Pitchers never want to be pulled, so I can respect Gray’s will to want to stay in the game and keep fighting. But a manager has to make the best decision for the team and that doesn’t always lineup with one player’s desire. They both expressed themselves and they both accepted this is how it is.

https://theathletic.com/4615303/2023/06/16/twins-sonny-gray-rocco-baldelli/

[Seth Stohs]

I didn't feel like typing this again... so here is my tweet on the situation: 

 And then after watching Gray's postgame interview: 

[glunn]

The way it worked out I can understand Gray's frustration.

[SwainZag]

I love that Gray is a bulldog and doesn't want to come out of games.  I also watched the game, watch Gray have little to no control over his breaking pitches, watch him walk 3 subpar hitters in the 4th and see 4 of the last 5 balls put in play against him were over 92 MPH.

Moran giving up 3 runs in the 5th doesn't change the fact it seemed like a good idea to replace Gray after 4.  

[Jocko87]

For a while I was wondering if he threw up before the game again.  It seems like every 6 weeks or so Sonny has one of these games where he just doesn't have it.  He's a bulldog and makes a decent ham sandwich but suddenly he has 97 pitches in the 5th.  They are the definition of high stress innings, for everyone. 

He's being pretty generous describing his performance tonight at the start of the clip.  Further in he's pretty honest about where his actual struggles are.  He makes a great point that he is able to make pitches to get out of situations but he absolutely needs to figure out the odd situations where he randomly loads the bases.  I don't see any issues in his comments and don't see the how anyone can say hes done with Rocco etc either.  He's being very honest, nothing wrong with that.

I would have been fine with letting him go out for the 5th but have no faith that it would have ended any different.  One base runner and hes out mid inning which is a worse look.  What the bullpen does or doesn't do doesn't matter.

[wsnydes]

Yeah, nothing to see there.  Gray is a competitive guy and wants the ball.  Love that attitude.  But he also knows why he was taken out and understands it.  What happens after that is irrelevant.  The decision was made and the bullpen has a job to do.  

[CRF]

Admire his attitude and desire to pitch. He knows he was fighting it and had no command. I can understand him not wanting to come out. The real problem was the pen...Moran and Lopez were putrid. It's time to give up on Lopez. I'd keep Pagan over him at this point. 

[TwinsDr2021]

Are we still pretending he is deserving of the all star game?

[Riverbrian]

32 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Are we still pretending he is deserving of the all star game?

Personally I don't care about the All-Star game... I take a 4 day break from baseball those days. 

But... Honestly... I wouldn't be pretending. 

He should be an All-Star. 

[TwinsDr2021]

38 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

Personally I don't care about the All-Star game... I take a 4 day break from baseball those days. 

But... Honestly... I wouldn't be pretending. 

He should be an All-Star. 

IMO, all these are having a better year so far them him - Eovaldi, Cole, Valdez, Bieber, Gausman, Berrios, McClanahan, Castillo, Ohtani, Ryan, Jon Gray, Rodriguez, so yes maybe if enough guys bow out he will get a spot.

The only two stats that makes him look good are ERA (which of course could be/probably would be higher if he was pitching more innings like the other pitchers and WAR, which in his case makes no sense since the team is 7 - 7 in his stars and about the same as Eovali's and he has been a much, much better pitcher this year.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

1 hour ago, CRF said:

Admire his attitude and desire to pitch. He knows he was fighting it and had no command. I can understand him not wanting to come out. The real problem was the pen...Moran and Lopez were putrid. It's time to give up on Lopez. I'd keep Pagan over him at this point. 

I was with you on time to give up on Lopez… then I was think “bridge too far”… however, he’s been awful for a month and doesn’t exactly have a long track record of success.

you might be right, it might be time to cut bait on Lopez, but they need to DFA Pagan first.

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, CRF said:

Admire his attitude and desire to pitch. He knows he was fighting it and had no command. I can understand him not wanting to come out. The real problem was the pen...Moran and Lopez were putrid. It's time to give up on Lopez. I'd keep Pagan over him at this point. 

This is the part that makes me frustrated. We can’t expect every starter to have a good day. Bad days happen, struggles happen. Gray isn’t a 9-inning pitcher. I don’t know if I would have pulled him after 4, but I also don’t think pulling him was wrong or suspect in any way. But not having the BP to support him, that’s frustrating and something I completely blame the FO for. Gray didn’t have it last night. Maki and Baldelli made the decision to pull him. Being the competitor he is, he got upset and didn’t want to come out of the game. I can respect that. Baldelli stuck to his decision. I can respect that, too. I think both of them deserve kudos in their pressers after the game for showing such professionalism. But the FO does us all a disservice on all of this. BP construction matters and deserves attention.

[Riverbrian]

13 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

IMO, all these are having a better year so far them him - Eovaldi, Cole, Valdez, Bieber, Gausman, Berrios, McClanahan, Castillo, Ohtani, Ryan, Jon Gray, Rodriguez, so yes maybe if enough guys bow out he will get a spot.

The only two stats that makes him look good are ERA (which of course could be/probably would be higher if he was pitching more innings like the other pitchers and WAR, which in his case makes no sense since the team is 7 - 7 in his stars and if about the same as Eovali's and he has been a much, much better pitcher this year.

ERA is a big one. 

It doesn't matter much to me though. 

[Linus]

8 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

This is the part that makes me frustrated. We can’t expect every starter to have a good day. Bad days happen, struggles happen. Gray isn’t a 9-inning pitcher. I don’t know if I would have pulled him after 4, but I also don’t think pulling him was wrong or suspect in any way. But not having the BP to support him, that’s frustrating and something I completely blame the FO for. Gray didn’t have it last night. Maki and Baldelli made the decision to pull him. Being the competitor he is, he got upset and didn’t want to come out of the game. I can respect that. Baldelli stuck to his decision. I can respect that, too. I think both of them deserve kudos in their pressers after the game for showing such professionalism. But the FO does us all a disservice on all of this. BP construction matters and deserves attention.

This. The starters have been great but they aren’t going to be perfect. Sonny needs to be way more efficient than 97 pitches to get through 4. The real problem is the pen. The FO really needs to be accountable for this mess. 

[TwinsDr2021]

11 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

 But not having the BP to support him, that’s frustrating and something I completely blame the FO for. Gray didn’t have it last night. Maki and Baldelli made the decision to pull him. Being the competitor he is, he got upset and didn’t want to come out of the game. Baldelli stuck to his decision. I think both of them deserve kudos in their pressers after the game for showing such professionalism. But the FO does us all a disservice on all of this. BP construction matters and deserves attention.

Agree the problem is bullpen construction, but it is also starter construction, you can't burn the candle at both ends, short starts and short bullpen outings. Not going to complain about last night, didn't see how Gray was doing, but sometimes you have to push starters more when your pen is as shallow as the Twins pen is. There are two guys that are trust worthy? (Duran and Stewart and aren't we all crossing our fingers he can keep this up), Two kind of trust worthy guys (Jax and Thielbar (IR)),  and what? Currently they only have Moran (7), Jax(7), Lopez(6) Stewart(5) and Duran (1) on the active that actually have a hold. They basically have 3 mop of guys Winder, De Leon and Pagan.

With that type of construction and a starter going 4 the first guy you bring in has to be somebody that you expect at least two and maybe 3 innings from, and that guy isn't your best left handed relief pitcher. You obviously don't bring in Pagan, the three best pitched the last night with low pitch counts so you don't want to use them unless it makes sense, so the choice should have been Winder or De Leon and while I blame the FO for giving him terrible choices, it is his choice on how to play it out and regardless of well Moran pitched it was the wrong choice. Even if he successfully pitches two scoreless innings, it is right back to using Jax, Stewart and Duran (for 3 total innings), thus leaving them unavailable maybe the next two nights, which means Lopez, Pagan, Winder, De Leon, and that is not a good place to be.

I mean couldn't they have pitched Winder again and sent him out after the game for Headrick or somebody?

[TwinsDr2021]

22 minutes ago, Linus said:

This. The starters have been great but they aren’t going to be perfect. Sonny needs to be way more efficient than 97 pitches to get through 4. The real problem is the pen. The FO really needs to be accountable for this mess. 

Just to clarify, he had 79 pitches not 97.  He had 76 in 5 the game before.

Generally speaking Gray isn't efficient with his pitches. and when he is which isn't often he still doesn't go real deep in games.

[Riverbrian]

1 minute ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Just to clarify, he had 79 pitches not 97.  He had 76 in 5 the game before.

Generally speaking Gray isn't efficient with his pitches. and when he is which isn't often he still doesn't go real deep in games.

When I watch Sonny pitch... I get the impression that he is most effective when he works out of the zone and he's good at that. If the batters are not biting he's gonna walk a few more and this will increase his WHIP and force him to live on the edge from time to time. It's what he needs to do to be successful and he has been successful. 

On the plus side... he's not giving up the big fly's because he does a good job staying out of the happy zone and he is striking out quite a few batters because they are chasing. 

Do I think Sonny could have righted the ship and hung a zero in the 5th? I do.

Should a manager warm up an arm in the bullpen after he walked 3 batters in the inning? I think a manager should.

If you get someone in the bullpen warmed up... do you sit him back down? Most managers don't because it's hard on the bullpen to do that sort of thing. 

I think Sonny needs to get used to this sort of thing because of the way he pitches and I want Sonny to know that I think he is doing great.  

 

[Craig Arko]

Gray reminds me of Jake Odorizzi; good stuff but the high pitch counts are a drag.

[chpettit19]

It's fascinating to see how people read into insanely small glimpses of teammate, or player manager, interactions. We've had 2 public spats between Rocco and Sonny over a season and a half, and we are discussing how well they get along? People have been throwing out the idea that Sonny is going to demand a trade since last year. Spent all offseason saying it was going to happen because he hates Rocco. He has 1 disagreement with Rocco in his first 14 starts in 2023 and people are back on the "he's going to demand a trade!" bus.

If Gray hated Rocco half as much as people seem to think he does, why is he waiting? Why haven't these trade demands come? Why didn't he make the demand in his presser last night? Could this be a little projection? Fans dislike Rocco. Fans have a perception that Rocco has too quick of a hook, and dislike it. Fans want him replaced. Fans see Gray get upset twice and decide it's just obvious that he feels the same way they do and he wants to get as far away from Rocco as possible. Fascinating.

[Woof Bronzer]

7 hours ago, SwainZag said:

Moran giving up 3 runs in the 5th doesn't change the fact it seemed like a good idea to replace Gray after 4.  

I mean, results matter...the issue I have with the decision to pull Gray - and a lot of analytics-heavy decisions - is the focus seems to be purely on Gray and not on who is going to replace him (and the domino effect for the rest of the game).  Yes, Gray was laboring a bit....but on the whole he is unquestionably a better pitcher than Moran.  So, the question becomes, is a laboring Gray still a better option than a fresh Moran?  Not saying this is a definitive "yes" (though I really don't trust Moran at all) but I don't see this question being asked frequently in these situations.  

[chpettit19]

32 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Agree the problem is bullpen construction, but it is also starter construction, you can't burn the candle at both ends, short starts and short bullpen outings. Not going to complain about last night, didn't see how Gray was doing, but sometimes you have to push starters more when your pen is as shallow as the Twins pen is. There are two guys that are trust worthy? (Duran and Stewart and aren't we all crossing our fingers he can keep this up), Two kind of trust worthy guys (Jax and Thielbar (IR)),  and what? Currently they only have Moran (7), Jax(7), Lopez(6) Stewart(5) and Duran (1) on the active that actually have a hold. They basically have 3 mop of guys Winder, De Leon and Pagan.

With that type of construction and a starter going 4 the first guy you bring in has to be somebody that you expect at least two and maybe 3 innings from, and that guy isn't your best left handed relief pitcher. You obviously don't bring in Pagan, the three best pitched the last night with low pitch counts so you don't want to use them unless it makes sense, so the choice should have been Winder or De Leon and while I blame the FO for giving him terrible choices, it is his choice on how to play it out and regardless of well Moran pitched it was the wrong choice. Even if he successfully pitches two scoreless innings, it is right back to using Jax, Stewart and Duran (for 3 total innings), thus leaving them unavailable maybe the next two nights, which means Lopez, Pagan, Winder, De Leon, and that is not a good place to be.

I mean couldn't they have pitched Winder again and sent him out after the game for Headrick or somebody?

I'm not quite tracking the argument here. Moran has shown he can go multiple innings. I assume the initial plan was for him to do 2 innings, hopefully scoreless and still with a lead, to get them to the 7th with the lead still. Then turn it over to the back end guys for the save. He was awful in his 1 inning so they took him out, and the equation changed to going to their bad relievers instead. Is your thought that Moran was the wrong choice because he was only set to go 1? He's gone more than 1 inning multiple times this year so I'm just trying to understand why he was the wrong choice.

[Craig Arko]

7 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

It's fascinating to see how people read into insanely small glimpses of teammate, or player manager, interactions. We've had 2 public spats between Rocco and Sonny over a season and a half, and we are discussing how well they get along? People have been throwing out the idea that Sonny is going to demand a trade since last year. Spent all offseason saying it was going to happen because he hates Rocco. He has 1 disagreement with Rocco in his first 14 starts in 2023 and people are back on the "he's going to demand a trade!" bus.

If Gray hated Rocco half as much as people seem to think he does, why is he waiting? Why haven't these trade demands come? Why didn't he make the demand in his presser last night? Could this be a little projection? Fans dislike Rocco. Fans have a perception that Rocco has too quick of a hook, and dislike it. Fans want him replaced. Fans see Gray get upset twice and decide it's just obvious that he feels the same way they do and he wants to get as far away from Rocco as possible. Fascinating.

Not every fan thinks these things. If they did, I’d certainly turn in my membership card.

[chpettit19]

Just now, Craig Arko said:

Not every fan thinks these things. If they did, I’d certainly turn in my membership card.

I by no means meant every fan. Just some.

[chpettit19]

3 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

I mean, results matter...the issue I have with the decision to pull Gray - and a lot of analytics-heavy decisions - is the focus seems to be purely on Gray and not on who is going to replace him (and the domino effect for the rest of the game).  Yes, Gray was laboring a bit....but on the whole he is unquestionably a better pitcher than Moran.  So, the question becomes, is a laboring Gray still a better option than a fresh Moran?  Not saying this is a definitive "yes" (though I really don't trust Moran at all) but I don't see this question being asked frequently in these situations.  

That's actually the exact question that's asked in this situation. It's the Twins belief that a fresh reliever is almost always better than a laboring starter (with a whole lot of variables that make up the definitions of fresh, and laboring). I think the disconnect between them and many of us is the quality of their relievers. They seem to be bigger believers in them than many fans tend to be, and that's where the disconnect comes.

[TopGunn#22]

I will be contrary to the prevailing logic that there's nothing to see here.  Gray was frustrated at being treated like Chris Archer LAST year.  He's still chaffing at Rocco's quick hooks.  A pitcher that has thrown 79 pitches through four innings isn't in any sort of groove but with a 4-2 lead show me a starter who wants to come out with the clear chance of a win if he can throw a scoreless 5th.  I predict Gray is gone at season's end.  That, coupled with the probable parting of ways with Maeda and Mahle leaves the Twins with Lopez, Ryan, Ober and Varland with maybe Paddock.  Nobody in AA or AAA has shown they are ready to step up and be counted on.  To me, this points to the need make a trade either at this year's deadline or in the off season to bring in at least one more reliable SP.

I will also point out (again) that with the current state of our BP  Anthony Bass is out there and wouldn't cost anything in terms of player capitol to sign and stabilize our BP.  He had a 1.41 ERA in 48 games with the Marlins last year and followed that up with a 1.74 ERA in another 28 games for the Blue Jays after a deadline deal.  Bass can pitch on multiple days and pitch effectively.  He has a proven track record as a quality BP arm.  

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

45 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

you can't burn the candle at both ends, short starts and short bullpen outings. Not going to complain about last night, didn't see how Gray was doing, but sometimes you have to push starters more when your pen is as shallow as the Twins pen is

This point can’t be emphasized enough. On the micro level, yeah maybe pull him last night, I didn’t see how he was doing either. No opinion.

On the macro level, the trend in 2023 has been a quicker hook for Gray compared to his April starts, and the Twins bullpen will really benefit by leaving Gray in games longer this summer, i’m even hoping that we can get an extra 15-20 innings out of Gray these next couple months. Then at the end of the season the Twins can go back to the early hooks and playing the situational pitching changes as we get later into the AL Central race, if needed. 

I think there is obviously a trend across baseball to pull starters earlier, but I am not one of those people who needs the smelling salts when starter puts a couple runners on after the 5th or 6th inning. 

[TwinsDr2021]

2 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I'm not quite tracking the argument here. Moran has shown he can go multiple innings. I assume the initial plan was for him to do 2 innings, hopefully scoreless and still with a lead, to get them to the 7th with the lead still. Then turn it over to the back end guys for the save. He was awful in his 1 inning so they took him out, and the equation changed to going to their bad relievers instead. Is your thought that Moran was the wrong choice because he was only set to go 1? He's gone more than 1 inning multiple times this year so I'm just trying to understand why he was the wrong choice.

My thought is even he goes 2 successfully, you still have 3 innings to go, which means either you using your 3 best relief pitchers in a back to back games or you are bringing in Pagan and Lopez which for first is O'fer on holds opportunities this year, and the other has been worse ,so if you go with the best 3 it will be  leaving them very short handed today and possibly tomorrow if they throw a bunch of pitches. 

IMO you can't go into a Joe Ryan game with your 3 best pitchers unavailable (how many times have pitchers pitched in 3 straight games?), that is unacceptable and Joe Ryan hasn't completed 8 innings yet this year, so at minimum you need two innings from the pen, but Ryan hasn't finished 7 since April 25 and only twice this year, so really you are going to need 3 innings from the pen with your best 3 probably unavailable.

IMO, when your bullpen is a short as the Twins, and a starter goes 4, the next guy at a minimum has to give you two innings no matter what and 3 would ideal. Moran wasn't giving the twins 3 innings and it was very unlikely to give you 2 since that has only happened twice this year and both times where in April and I believe with Thielbar healthy.

 

[jmlease1]

4 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

That's actually the exact question that's asked in this situation. It's the Twins belief that a fresh reliever is almost always better than a laboring starter (with a whole lot of variables that make up the definitions of fresh, and laboring). I think the disconnect between them and many of us is the quality of their relievers. They seem to be bigger believers in them than many fans tend to be, and that's where the disconnect comes.

I think that's right. And they definitely assumed some risk in bullpen construction this season, going into the season expecting to get value out of Alcala (who unfortunately has not really come back after his lost season), Lopez (who has really struggled lately, and sadly looks like someone we just bought high on), Thielbar (who has been out with injury for 5 weeks now), and Pagan (whom no one outside of the Twins organization really trusts), and Sands (who was more lucky than good before also getting hurt).

That's probably too many questions to have in your bullpen going into a season, even for a team that's shown they can find guys like Brock Stewart as the season goes along. but it's also hard to find reliable consistent relievers in MLB, which is one of the reasons the Twins haven't been interested in spending a lot on the free agent market for relievers. (Some of us, including me, wanted the Twins to consider a reunion with Trevor May: he's been awful. or Taylor Rogers, who was bad last year, good the year before, bad the year before that and is good again this year...but would you want to be on the hook for 2 more years at $12M per?)

But at the end of the day, I don't think there's all that much in any "conflict" between Rocco and Sonny. Gray wants to stay in the game; he always wants to stay in the game. Rocco will take it into account, and might give him more rope than a younger pitcher, but is also looking at the the game in hand and the season as a whole. He's not going to burn 2 weeks of Sonny Gray starts for an extra inning (managing injury risk is the managers job, and we've seen that you can't always trust players on this stuff) and he's going to expect every player on the roster to do their job. Gray's really competitive, and he's going to be mad about coming out (and I'd be willing to bet one of the reasons he was maybe a little more fired up was he was mad at himself for walking 3 guys in the inning) and he's not afraid to show it. Rocco also isn't afraid to push back, and isn't going to back down. No one's calling anyone any names or anything.

[chpettit19]

12 minutes ago, TopGunn#22 said:

I will be contrary to the prevailing logic that there's nothing to see here.  Gray was frustrated at being treated like Chris Archer LAST year.  He's still chaffing at Rocco's quick hooks.  A pitcher that has thrown 79 pitches through four innings isn't in any sort of groove but with a 4-2 lead show me a starter who wants to come out with the clear chance of a win if he can throw a scoreless 5th.  I predict Gray is gone at season's end.  That, coupled with the probable parting of ways with Maeda and Mahle leaves the Twins with Lopez, Ryan, Ober and Varland with maybe Paddock.  Nobody in AA or AAA has shown they are ready to step up and be counted on.  To me, this points to the need make a trade either at this year's deadline or in the off season to bring in at least one more reliable SP.

I will also point out (again) that with the current state of our BP  Anthony Bass is out there and wouldn't cost anything in terms of player capitol to sign and stabilize our BP.  He had a 1.41 ERA in 48 games with the Marlins last year and followed that up with a 1.74 ERA in another 28 games for the Blue Jays after a deadline deal.  Bass can pitch on multiple days and pitch effectively.  He has a proven track record as a quality BP arm.  

I think the general consensus was that Gray is likely gone after this year anyways. They got a deal done with Paddack. Got a deal done with Lopez. If they were looking hard at keeping Gray I'd think there'd already be reports of them discussing things, but I don't remember any (totally possible I've just forgotten, though). I think the plan was always to put a QO on him, and take their comp pick. 

He's never been a big inning guy. In terms of game to game, or total on the year. Well at least not since 2015. Has he been upset a couple times about individual game quick hooks? Obviously. But this is who he's been for 8 years. Throws way too many pitches, and just generally doesn't go deep in games. I think this is much ado about 2 complaints in 38 starts.

[Woof Bronzer]

12 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

That's actually the exact question that's asked in this situation. It's the Twins belief that a fresh reliever is almost always better than a laboring starter (with a whole lot of variables that make up the definitions of fresh, and laboring). 

But my point is that all "fresh relievers" are not created equally.  Replacing Gray with Duran is a much different proposition than replacing him with Moran.  The specifics of the situation have to factor into the decision.  "Any reliever is better than a laboring starter" is just factually false, so if that's the process here I'd say it's pretty flawed.