Rotation Innings

[KirbyDome89]

14 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Ober pitched on 9/24 in 2021. IIRC, he was placed on the IL so that there was room for SWR to get a start on one of the last days of the year. I would say any injury Ober had was akin to Joey Gallo’s foot injury in September of 2023. 
 

He made his debut in May of 2021 and the mjnors didn’t have their first games until May 4. I would say he was healthy for virtually all of 2021. 

Yep, completely forgot about the late MiLB start that year. 

No clue whether or not the injury was exaggerated. That 2021 team stopped playing meaningful innings in May, and the roster was basically a AAAA group from August onward so Idk why you'd need to cut short a young players' season to get another young arm a single start but who knows. 

Ok, I'll grant you 2021, but we're still talking about a season in which he was handled with kid gloves and barely topped 100 IP. Last year was certainly a big step up from that; fair or not, I'm skeptical he can reliably go 160ish innings yearly. 

[stringer bell]

6 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Yep, completely forgot about the late MiLB start that year. 

No clue whether or not the injury was exaggerated. That 2021 team stopped playing meaningful innings in May, and the roster was basically a AAAA group from August onward so Idk why you'd need to cut short a young players' season to get another young arm a single start but who knows. 

Ok, I'll grant you 2021, but we're still talking about a season in which he was handled with kid gloves and barely topped 100 IP. Last year was certainly a big step up from that; fair or not, I'm skeptical he can reliably go 160ish innings yearly. 

I agree that the club has handled Ober gingerly throughout, last year giving him a time off/time out in St. Paul late in the season. He publicly said he felt fine and his velocity and extension were consistent. However over 160 innings (AAA and MLB) were quite a step up from anything he had done before. 

On balance, I think Ober is probably no greater or lesser an injury risk than any random starter in MLB. Almost all of them have injury histories and have worked to get back to the highest level. 

On the late season IL stint in 2021, I recall that Ober was basically the only guy who could be taken off the roster and they couldn't option him because the minor league seasons were over. I won't swear to this, but that is my recollection.

 

[KirbyDome89]

17 hours ago, Brandon said:

For as much success as we had with health last season we had quite a few starters in our rotation miss time with injuries.  Mahle only got 5 starts.  Meada missed over a month close to two.  Ryan had a groin injury and Paddack was out almost the entire year.  We did get volume from our top 8 though.  Lopez, Gray, Mahle, Paddack, Ober, Ryan, Meada, Varland with Keuchel getting 6 or more starts too.

Mahle was the big one. Other than him, the Twins avoided a lengthy IL stint for any starter. On the scale of bad to good luck, last season skews heavily towards the latter as far as pitching health is concerned. 

Maeda threw over 100 innings last season post TJ. That's pretty much what you'd expect. Paddack wasn't in the plans at all in 2023 so he shouldn't be counted towards "missed time." Ryan, Lopez, and Ober all hit career highs for IP. Sonny Gray hit his highest total in nearly a decade. That's insane volume. 

[KirbyDome89]

3 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

I agree that the club has handled Ober gingerly throughout, last year giving him a time off/time out in St. Paul late in the season. He publicly said he felt fine and his velocity and extension were consistent. However over 160 innings (AAA and MLB) were quite a step up from anything he had done before. 

On balance, I think Ober is probably no greater or lesser an injury risk than any random starter in MLB. Almost all of them have injury histories and have worked to get back to the highest level. 

No issue with the time off. His workload last season far exceeded anything he's done previously. It's that last part that gives me pause heading into this year though. 

That balance is casting a pretty wide net. If it's Ober vs. a random backend journeyman with his own injury history, ok? If we're talking about Ober vs. someone who has reliably thrown 130+ innings a year (a fairly low bar to clear) then Idk if I'd say it's a coin flip. I think that second comp should be what we're looking at.

[tony&rodney]

We might as well guess at this:

Lopez, Ryan, Ober, & Varland go 175 innings and Paddack reaches 120 innings. Nice.

Hope is a wonderful thing.