Has Emilio Pagan Atoned for Past Sins to Live Up to FO Expectations?

[Althebum82]

As of today his season 3.48 ERA is better than his career average, his season WHIP of 1.065 worthy of note, and he is 4-1 with 40 strikeouts in 41 innings.

My skepticism still runs deep, but he has overall had a positive impact on this team's season.

Anyone else want to concede some ground at this point about the FO confidence?

[Vanimal46]

In the very controlled role they have him in, he’s doing well. Has it been worth the hassle of shielding a 32 year old veteran from high leverage opportunities as much as possible? I don’t know. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

52 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

In the very controlled role they have him in, he’s doing well. Has it been worth the hassle of shielding a 32 year old veteran from high leverage opportunities as much as possible? I don’t know. 

His -0.26 WPA indicates what happens when he’s forced into leverage.

my vote is no, he has not atoned. his role needs to be for relievers with 5-6 years of control in front of them, not a 5 year veteran. It’s a terrible investment where you put the cost of using those key development innings and the best case scenario is you get crap innings and then extend him at full market price.

nothing against Emilio Pagan, and I hope he gets his money, but it shouldn’t be, because the MN Twins are the poster children for the sunk cost fallacy 

[USAFChief]

NEVER!!1!

[CRF]

No. He's doing ok in low leverage situations, but as soon as Rocco throws him into a tough spot...he'll show what he really is. He's proven it too many times. 

[Dave Lemke]

You mean like last night when he comes in with a one run lead and strikes out two and throws a 1-2-3 inning on 9 pitches? Sounds like a high leverage situation to me!

[Trov]

He may not be the most reliable and will not be used in many high leverage situations, but he has show an ability to get outs.  Every pitcher has bad days, and really he is normally either really bad, or does just fine this year.  I know we worry so much about past outings, but take it one game at time.  I would not want him closing games or being regular 8th inning guy, but I am fine with him in games overall. 

[2wins87]

I remain convinced that there is a real, non-random component to his struggles in high leverage situations which have been present over his entire career.

Last night looked good.  He didn't seem to be nibbling early, and by getting ahead he was able to pitch a clean inning.

I will remain open-minded that maybe somehow something will click and he can remain as reliable in high leverage as he's been in other situations.  But I am very nervous that in Stewart's and Thielbar's absences, he seems to have worked himself back to 3rd in the bullpen hierarchy.

 

[pierre75275]

No

Hopefully his recent upswing doesn't have us signing him to an extension this week

 

[SpicyGarvSauce]

LOL no.

[DocBauer]

I want to be fair here, he simply hasn't been as bad as I expected him to be. Especially lately, he's been much more consistent and reliable. I'll give him that. Now, can he keep it up is a big question. 

But IMO, he shouldn't have been brought back. And no, I don't believe he's made up for past sins. At least not to this point.

Look, every-single-reliever is going to have bad days. Period. Duran is human at times. Jax has been outstanding, and he had a bad pitch against the Mariners Wednesday night for his 1st HR of the season, and 1st since July or August of 2022, IIRC.

The problem with Pagan is not him not being perfect. It's about being decent to good about 75-80% of the time and just BLOWING UP in a major way the other 20-25%. Not a BAD DAY, but being AWFUL when he's not decent to good. 

I don't deny, never have, that he's got some good stuff. Watching his last couple times out I was nervous as hell, but he actually flashed, and did a good job. But before he joined the Twins, what he did in 2022, what he's done in a handful of games this year, is an unmistakable pattern of usually crumbling when the pressure is on. His "sins", if you will.

Now, IF AND MAYBE, he's ACTUALLY figured something out in mechanics and sequencing to finish this season out as a reliable 5-7th inning arm that doesn't just blow up in key moments...a bad moment is acceptable...then yes, he can atone for his "sins".

My concern, if he actually does that, is the FO will want to extend him. Winder, Sands, and Balazovic have all started to look like potential BP arms now healthy, and making the pen conversion. Henriquez will hopefully do the same. I still think Headrick...though I'm not saying he COULDN'T remain a SP option...looks like a potential Thielbar replacement. Funderburk has a shot to be a useful BP option. A healthy, recovered Canterino might yet be a really good pen arm at some time in 2024. 

Any success by Pagan the rest of the year is good for the Twins, of course. But the FO confounds me at times how they "fall in love" with some players and not others, despite numbers and history. For instance, Pagan. And on topic, we can debate again and again about Gallo as a shot to rebound and help the offense. And to be fair, it wasn't a bad gamble. After all, there were at least some questions concerning the readiness of AK, Larnach, Wallner, and Gordon proving himself. And there were questions about Winder and Balazovic and Alcala as ready arms, or not.

But to sign Gallo, keep Kepler, AND keep Pagan for a combined $23M instead of bringing one of a few decent RH bats on board that were available, and signing what we can only speculate as a smart choice for a reliable 6-7th inning bullpen option, maybe a Fulmer re-sign, and letting the unspectacular but solid Coloumbe just walk, is a poor allocation of assets and funds. 

So now we sit thinking the Twins need to trade for a RH bat, when we could have signed one. And while the pen isn't bad, we sure could use one more reliable arm, even though we could have signed one. (Or kept a couple). And we're debating the merits of Pagan exercising his "sins".

While the FO did some very good things to build this team, they seemed to stop at about 90% of completion. And Pagan is part of that. 

He's a really good guy, and teammate. And I hope he DOES do enough to atone the rest of the season. That would be great!

But a few "ah-ha" moments for him, and others, doesn't mean the right decisions were made.

 

 

[ICTwin25]

My vote is no, but his stats are absolutely hilarious because he makes it very obvious when to pitch him and when not to. Ahead in games? Nope. Day games? Nope. High leverage? Nope. Night games, against Cleveland or Chicago, and low leverage then he's your guy.

[IaBeanCounter]

Not yet, but I have to eat some crow.  On 6/27 when Stewart went down I responded to a questions as to whether Pagan could step up and I responded that I didn't believe he could because he had troubles with good teams (over .500).  Beginning with the Baltimore road series Pagan has appeared in 11 games, 10 innings 1 ER for an ERA of .90.  Four of the appearance were against Balt and two against Sea.  In those 6 games he has 4.1 IP and 0 ER.  So I have to admit he has stepped it up and I was wrong.

Pagan has been awful in 3 games (Bos 6 ER, LAD 3 ER and Tor 3 ER).  In his other 36 appearance (I don't count the 1 HBP pitch leave with injury) he has given up 4 runs (all single run appearances).  Some want to discount yesterday's game, but for the home team to not allow the ghost to score, increases the chances of winning from 43.8% to 80.7% a WPA swing of .369.

Do I like seeing Pagan come in close game against a good team, no.  But I have gone from perceiving that he will have an 80% chance of failure to believing that its a 50/50 game, even though the numbers to date say it will be more of 60-70% chance of being a successful outing (carryover from last year I guess).

I hope July Pagan is the Pagan we see for the remainder of the year.

 

[Nine of twelve]

IMHO he has been good enough that he merits a place on the roster. In other words, we don't have anyone in the system who looks to be more reliable. This doesn't mean that I experience good feelings when he is brought in but continued success could change that.

[nicksaviking]

I don't need him to atone. When it comes to players on the other 29 teams, I want to get the ones who look like they're going to be better tomorrow than their counting stats show now. Seems like most trades do the opposite and pay for yesterday's numbers despite the red flags. Pagan has always looked like that first kind of player, he just so happened to perform poorly for my team so the well was poisoned.

I mean, his leash was way too long and I was in favor of ousting him long ago, but I'm good riding the wave now that it's finally benefiting us.