2025 Offseason Handbook: Should 2025 Twins Starting Rotation Be Five Starters, or Six? - Caretaker Exclusive

[Jamie Cameron]

It's not your father's starting rotation. No one is making 40 starts in a season anymore. Should anyone even plan to make 30?

Image courtesy of © Brian Bradshaw Sevald-Imagn Images

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During the 2024 Twins’ late-season swoon, there were so many overlapping strands of misfortune that it became difficult to unearth the root of the struggles. One of their greatest was an untested rotation, composed largely of three rookies. Simeon Woods-Richardson, easily the team’s rookie of the year, wore down. David Festa showed flashes of dominance, but they were interspersed with inconsistency and challenges with the long ball. Zebby Matthews, though still promising in the long run, didn't look ready for what was meant to be more than a late-season audition. All of this resulted in each September contest playing out like a playoff game: short starts, heavy bullpen involvement and taxation. That’s not a recipe for success over a six-week span, let alone the six-month marathon.

Could a six-man rotation be an answer to the Twins' rotation erosion in 2025? Let’s dig in.

Let’s start with the most basic benefit, from the jump. A six man rotation limits individual pitcher workload. The Twins have been relatively lucky, in their last two seasons, to have a solid run of clean health from most of their starting pitchers. Even so, we should highlight the challenges. Chris Paddack missed the majority of 2024, logging just 88 innings and calling into question (via health and performance) whether he is a viable MLB starter. Joe Ryan was limited to just 135 innings in 2024, missing the entire stretch run when the Twins were in dire need of quality innings.

So, how much impact could this really have? Well, annoyingly, it’s tough to quantify, with noisy data and a lack of extended examples on which to rely, but we can overlay some additional context and variables on the idea of a six-man rotation which can help us consider the concept with more nuance. We’ll do this through the form of asking and answering some questions. I’m arguing that the questions below serve as a barometer of the viability of a six-man rotation for a given MLB organization. The more we can answer affirmatively, the stronger the case for considering six starters.

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[LewFordLives]

Plan for six, but assume the reality will be five because of injuries and poor performance. The Twins will be relying heavily on younger pitchers and/or reclamation projects. They need Pablo/Ryan/Ober to take the ball as much as possible.

Even with a five man rotation the Twins don't exactly tax their starters. Pablo led the team with 185 innings. Twenty years ago starters often threw over 200 innings (why this has changed over time is another discussion).

[Rod Carews Birthday]

This is a solid idea if you feel good enough about your cadre of starters to make it happen.  The other thing is that this can be a floating target a little.  The team could start on a six man rotation schedule, then if someone needs a couple of starts off for minor injury, etc, you flip back to five.  Then, when the starters are available again, you can flip back up to six.  

[IndianaTwin]

One reason why the Dodgers led the league in starts on five or more days rest is that they used 17 different starters over the course of the year. The Twins used 10, for context. Most starters making their first start of the year are doing it on more than five days rest.

One reason why they used so many starters is because of guys going on and off of the IL. They only had two guys make more than 18 starts. Guys making their first start after coming off the IL are also doing it on more than five days rest. 

All that to say that I don't think the Dodgers were using a six-man rotation out of desire. They were using a five-guys-who-are-healthy rotation.

I don't think planning to trade 10 starts of Lopez and Ober for rookies getting their feet wet is a good idea.

[LambchoP]

I don't think we have six starters that are ready for a rotation role. Festa and Mathews need more time at AAA. It'd be nice if we could move Paddack and sign a decent vet. I like a rotation of

Lopez, Ober, Ryan, SWR and Free agent veteran

Festa, Mathews, Morris are first in line as injury replacement.

[old nurse]

A six man rotation does not change bullpen usage. The bullpen could not sustain 550 innings as a 7 man group. 

[Jamie Cameron]

44 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

This is a solid idea if you feel good enough about your cadre of starters to make it happen.  The other thing is that this can be a floating target a little.  The team could start on a six man rotation schedule, then if someone needs a couple of starts off for minor injury, etc, you flip back to five.  Then, when the starters are available again, you can flip back up to six.  

I really appreciate this thought a lot. I think we tend to think inflexibly about these things, but there are times of the season when starters get arm fatigue/dead arm when it might make sense to flex to something like this for two turns through the rotation.

[DJL44]

I am not a big fan of taking innings away from your top 3-4 starters and giving them to your 6th best option, especially since as the season goes on that 6th best option is 9th or 10th on the original depth chart. I don't see reducing the workload of your best pitchers as a positive. It would be great if they could give Lopez, Ryan and Ober more innings if they could maintain the same level of effectiveness.

I have actually argued for the opposite. As the number of innings pitched in the actual game shrinks, I'm not convinced pitchers need as much time between games to recover. Relievers don't get 4 days between outings. If the starter goes a maximum of 5 innings they could go to a 4-man rotation. 40 starts of 5 innings is 200 innings for your best pitchers.

The whole concept of "rest" is simplistic. MLB pitchers are training on their off days. You can't maintain velocity and avoid injury if you pitch once a week and sit on the couch the rest of the time. If an extra day of training helps improve performance and avoid injury, then I can see teams opting to go to a larger rotation.

[Jamie Cameron]

13 minutes ago, old nurse said:

A six man rotation does not change bullpen usage. The bullpen could not sustain 550 innings as a 7 man group. 

Not necessarily usage, but composition a little imo. Need a guy who can pitch 4 out of 5 days, if needed. Don't know if the Twins have that currently.

[AKTwinsFan]

Draft some high picks 1st, 2nd, 3rd round as pitchers. Stop wasting picks on infielders and outfielders. If you draft quality prospects then they can be effective in the long run (or at least some). That and a switch hitting catcher.

[TwinsDr2021]

3 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

I don't think planning to trade 10 starts of Lopez and Ober for rookies getting their feet wet is a good idea.

💯this!

[bean5302]

A six man rotation makes no sense to me. As almost everybody has agreed, trading Pablo Lopez or Joe Ryan starts in favor of Randy Dobnak starts is a bad idea if you want to win games.

Not to mention a couple of rotation arms will go down throughout the year. If you have a six man rotation, that means you need at least 9+ MLB caliber starters. The Twins have 7 guys on the roster I'd be comfortable with in even a spot start capacity. After that, totally unproven minor league depth.

The only team who intentionally employed a six man rotation was the Angels when they had Shohei Ohtani. That's after years and years of speculation and pushing by people who just want to be "right" on the internet, but without any concrete or even real suggestive evidence a 6 man rotation carries any benefit for injury prevention or durability. The drawbacks for a 6 man rotation have far outweighed any potential gain for MLB teams so far, and I agree with them.

[ashbury]

7 hours ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

this can be a floating target a little. 

 

7 hours ago, DJL44 said:

The whole concept of "rest" is simplistic.

I'll use these snippets from two posts as a starting point (and to acknowledge those who touched on the ideas first).  Even with the recent expansion to 13-man pitching staffs as a defacto standard, bullpens are strained, with the solution being a constant shuttle from AAA to the majors, making for 14 or even 15 guys essentially on call during any two week period (minor league stays being regulated by league rules).  If an 8-man bullpen is strained when you have a 5-man rotation, a 7-man bullpen isn't going to fare even as well when 6 pitchers are deemed exempt from entering the ballgame in the middle innings.  IMO the philosophy with the bullpen has to change, if the starting rotation changes even a little in this direction (and maybe even if present usage patterns continue).

The veterans Ryan, Lopez, and Ober averaged long enough starts (in this day and age, anyway), but SWR is a good example of what the manager and pitching coach had to deal with.  Look at his splits by inning.  In each of innings 1 through 3, he delivered very good performance - a far sight better than league average, with ERA under 4.00 in each one.  In inning 4 his performance faltered, and by inning 5 he was frequently terrible (or no longer in the game). In a minority of his starts he pitched in the sixth inning and resumed good results - those are easy to argue as being days when he was "on".  In summary, most of his starts were effective for 3 innings but usually the bullpen had to cover 4 or often 5 innings.  The usage patterns for the other inexperienced pitches who started games aren't too much different in overall character.

But look at the 2024 bullpen.  There were 6 pitchers whose appearances were more numerous than any of the starters: Jax, Sands, Thielbar, Duran, Alcala, and Okert.  Okert and Thielbar averaged fewer than one inning per appearance, probably because they are lefties trying to survive in an era where LOOGYs are nearly useless.  Jax and Duran also averaged just under one inning per appearance, for good reasons since they are late-inning specialists.  Only Alcala and Sands were used on average for more than one inning at a time, and just barely.

If the team wants a 6-man rotation, the bullpen needs to be remade and the philosophy of its use needs to be reconsidered, with a lot fewer one-inning pitchers.  The idea of converting failed minor league starters to relief, emphasizing max-effort, needs to be toned down, toward higher-effort but also multiple inning stints.  Current stalwarts Alcala and Sands could for instance be stretched out a little, hopefully without impairing their effectiveness too greatly or else this will all fail.  Other players added, such as waiver-wire pickups, need to be told at the outset to plan on pitching 2 or even 3 quality innings when called for.

There's a limit to how well this can possibly work: if these guys are good for 3 quality innings, they're in Simeon Richardson Woods territory already, and likely weren't available for pennies in the first place.  But that's what's needed if the 6-man rotation idea is pursued.

The potential role for one-inning shutdown guys becomes very limited - two guys such as Jax and Duran for example. Everyone else needs to be a long-man - in an era of 4 or 5 inning starts, 2 or 3 innings IS a long man.

And then with a rebuilt bullpen, the usage philosophy needs to shift.  The rotation can be choreographed, but bullpen usage is by nature completely ad hoc.  The starter you counted on to stop a losing streak?  He has a bad start and you need to bring someone in earlier than you wanted.  The philosophy has to be more in the direction of "next man up" among your bullpen choices, and as long as he is getting decent results, leave him in to begin the next inning too.  Treat him like a starter, almost, and watch his spin rates or whatever metrics you use, but as long as he's got the fundamentals working in his favor, leave him in - maybe even if he gives up a run or two, since nobody keeps their ERA at 0.00 indefinitely.  It's a long season, you have to be pragmatic, and you can't manage like it's the 7th game of the World Series.

All of this is setting aside that, almost by definition, you are taking away innings from your best starters and giving those innings to arms that are, to be charitable, unproven.  Maybe they can all be like SWR and show effectiveness when used in moderation.

tl;dnr: Going to a six-man rotation is intriguing but hard.