Minnesota’s Undervalued Reliever: Griffin Jax Staying in Twins Bullpen for 2025

[IndianaTwin]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

It might be Paddack. He'll be the 5th starter if they keep him but he might be blocking better pitchers.

Lopez, Ryan, Ober, Woods-Richardson, Paddack, Festa, Matthews, Morris, Raya, Lewis

Similarly, at least one of Festa, Matthews, Morris, Raya and Lewis will make a start in April. 

[DJL44]

20 minutes ago, IndianaTwin said:

Plus the IL spot(s) that will be needed. The likelihood of all seven being healthy at the end of spring training is a decimal, some number of zeroes and a 1 percent. 

Still, there are at least 3 relievers who look like they'll end up in AAA who could reasonably be expected to be as good as Paddack in the bullpen. $7.5M is a lot to pay for your 10th best reliever. To justify that salary for the Twins he needs to be an All-Star closer.

Similarly, I want Festa to get April starts instead of Paddack because I would rather invest those innings in Festa. Paddack's my 10th choice for the bullpen and my 6th choice for the rotation which makes him quite expendable. They have the depth to make it through the season without him.

[IndianaTwin]

20 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Still, there are at least 3 relievers who look like they'll end up in AAA who could reasonably be expected to be as good as Paddack in the bullpen. $7.5M is a lot to pay for your 10th best reliever. To justify that salary for the Twins he needs to be an All-Star closer.

Similarly, I want Festa to get April starts instead of Paddack because I would rather invest those innings in Festa. Paddack's my 10th choice for the bullpen and my 6th choice for the rotation which makes him quite expendable. They have the depth to make it through the season without him.

To focus on Paddack as a starter, you're really comparing Paddack to something like your 11th starter. I chose 11th because you listed (or implied) nine other starters besides Paddack. What I mean by that is if if you dump Paddack just for the sake of dumping him, you're sliding everyone up the ladder. In many (most?) seasons, you're going to need to go at least 11 deep. So if Paddack doesn't get starts, you're saying that you're willing to use someone not on that list.

I get that you're saying Festa will be better in the long run, but with Festa never having thrown more than 125 innings, I don't think it's a huge loss to plan for a best-case (in terms of health) scenario that he starts in St. Paul. Ober in 2023 is a good case in point. He only started five games (22.2 innings) in St. Paul before he was needed. If he's healthy and effective, Festa won't be in St. Paul long enough to shoot many of his bullets. 

And in reality, I wonder if folks are underestimating Paddack. Will he last the season healthwise? Perhaps (even probably) not. But if you look at his game log from a year ago, his shaky overall stats are really driven by a couple games where he took one for the team, which happens much more for a veteran than it does for a young guy. He had a good number of games that were decent or really quite good. Said another way, Paddack's best games were better than Festa's best games. I'm glad to roll the dice with Paddack as a starter and buy continued development time for Festa, et al.        

[DJL44]

5 minutes ago, IndianaTwin said:

To focus on Paddack as a starter, you're really comparing Paddack to something like your 11th starter. I chose 11th because you listed (or implied) nine other starters besides Paddack. What I mean by that is if if you dump Paddack just for the sake of dumping him, you're sliding everyone up the ladder. In many (most?) seasons, you're going to need to go at least 11 deep. So if Paddack doesn't get starts, you're saying that you're willing to use someone not on that list.

I get that you're saying Festa will be better in the long run, but with Festa never having thrown more than 125 innings, I don't think it's a huge loss to plan for a best-case (in terms of health) scenario that he starts in St. Paul. Ober in 2023 is a good case in point. He only started five games (22.2 innings) in St. Paul before he was needed. If he's healthy and effective, Festa won't be in St. Paul long enough to shoot many of his bullets. 

And in reality, I wonder if folks are underestimating Paddack. Will he last the season healthwise? Perhaps (even probably) not. But if you look at his game log from a year ago, his shaky overall stats are really driven by a couple games where he took one for the team, which happens much more for a veteran than it does for a young guy. He had a good number of games that were decent or really quite good. Said another way, Paddack's best games were better than Festa's best games. I'm glad to roll the dice with Paddack as a starter and buy continued development time for Festa, et al.        

But the 10th-11th starter will get like 5 games. Is it worth $7.5M to make sure Marco Raya or Travis Adams don't get 5 starts combined in 2025? There is downside to giving 20 starts to a pitcher with a 4.90 ERA (Paddack's ERA over the past 5 MLB seasons) to avoid giving 5 starts to a pitcher with a 6.00 ERA.

[IndianaTwin]

3 hours ago, DJL44 said:

But the 10th-11th starter will get like 5 games. Is it worth $7.5M to make sure Marco Raya or Travis Adams don't get 5 starts combined in 2025? There is downside to giving 20 starts to a pitcher with a 4.90 ERA (Paddack's ERA over the past 5 MLB seasons) to avoid giving 5 starts to a pitcher with a 6.00 ERA.

I'm not trying to be a smark aleck with this question, but when's the last time a starting pitcher that is ready has legitimately been blocked by ineffective starters? 

And I used the 10th/11th man at the end of the season as my argument, but let's also think of it differently. Because of injuries, I think there is a better than 50/50 chance that Matthews ends up starting one of the first five games. So if you accept my argument that there's a better than 50/50 chance that someone outside the "projected" top five begins in the rotation (or if you prefer, that there's a better than 50/50 chance that a projected starter begins the season on the IL), then the question becomes, do you want to take Paddack out of the mix and expect that Zebby Matthews will likely start the season in the rotation when one of Lopez-Ober-Ryan-SWR-Festa ends up on the IL?

With how Matthews threw last year and knowing that he's only had four AAA starts, I don't.  

[DJL44]

41 minutes ago, IndianaTwin said:

Because of injuries, I think there is a better than 50/50 chance that Matthews ends up starting one of the first five games.

First five weeks, maybe. If it's in the first 5 games then it's probably Paddack who is injured.