Chris Paddack Has Dibs on a Rotation Spot, and a Chance to Emerge as a Vital Cog for 2025 Twins

[TwinsDr2021]

1 hour ago, Fezig said:

I never thought I'd think this but why not... How about a 6 man staff keeping Festa and Paddack, with one caveat. No more five inning games. Let them stretch it out a little bit since they'll have an extra day off.

Because of Lopez, Ryan and Ober, why takes starts from them to give to lesser pitchers? Now if you said you wanted to keep those 6 pitchers and piggy back SWR with Festa for a while, that makes sense.

[LambchoP]

I think Paddack could provide some real value this year. I'm thinking maybe he pitches well the first couple months, until Festa looks ready, and then Paddack suddenly goes on the IL for a while giving his rotation spot to Festa. Maybe Paddack comes back in the bullpen if there's an opening. Maybe another team  comes calling and offers us some kind of trade that would benefit the major league club at the trade deadline. Paddack will be doing all he can to pitch a career year as he's entering free agency and wants to land that lucrative deal 

[Craig Arko]

3 hours ago, old nurse said:

Well, if the bloggers at TD continually repeat the same thing, doesn’t that make the statement a true one?

Noper doper.

[rdehring]

What are we going to get from Paddack in 2025?  Truth is, no one knows what they are going to get from any ballplayer every year.  Any player can go down with a season ending injury before opening day.  Granted, someone with his injury history may be a bigger risk, but sounds like he is as healthy as he has been for most of his career.

I like what I am hearing from him.  Considering the Twins have several young arms chomping at the bit to get that call, there is no reason to baby Paddack out of the gate.  So the Twins should be able to get the maximum out of his arm the first half of the season.  Should that be a good four months, they just might get one heck of a return come the trading deadline.  

That is my hope, lots of solid starts and then a couple really nice prospects at AA of AAA.  Hopefully, the best will be a catcher.

[tony&rodney]

Hopefully every player is at their best. Chris Paddack was at his best in 2019 and that year has covered for everything he has done since. Falvey is on record as saying he wanted to acquire Paddack since he was hired in 2017 and he did so as soon as the Padres agreed to deal Paddack. So we get Paddack no matter what until he is injured. That is the reality. I don't think this is even an argument because Falvey makes the call.

The argument for Woods Richardson, Festa, and Matthews to be ahead of Paddack ignores 2019, just as we don't expect Nelson Cruz back or Huascar Ynoa to repeat his 2021 season. For some of us the future is now and we would rather watch any 2 of the 3 guys named above pitch than Paddack. Speaking only for myself, I believe the Twins stand a better chance to win games with Festa and Woods Richardson and then Matthews on the mound than Paddack. I also have no concern about any of the young guys wearing down this season. As said often, injuries do occur. No reason to get too excited by wins or losses, but we will hope for wins.

[LA Vikes Fan]

12 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

Because...

A) He has a career WHIP of 1.190
B) He has a SO/BB of 4.69.
C) And...

I get it. He had another seven starts, a couple of which were so-so/weak and several of which were atrocious. In total, nearly a third of his earned runs came in two of his 17 starts and more than half came in four. 

As the OP notes, the issue is consistency, but when a guy throws that many solid to very good games (including some of the team's best starts of the year), it's worth going back to him to see if the percentage of good starts can increase in the second year back from TJS.

Will Paddack make the full 32 starts? Very doubtful, based on history. Frankly, I'm guessing the Twins don't think he will either.

But realistically, if Festa's career high in innings is 124 and he's only spent a bit more than a half season at AAA, he's not going to make 32 starts either. However, with injuries, Festa is probably going to get 20 or more starts in the majors no matter what. The question is whether those 20 come in April-August or if they start a few weeks into the season.

Paddack is one more arrow in the quiver. His 20 or starts aren't going to come at the expense of the No. 6 guy, Festa. They are going to come at the expense of the Nos. 9 or 10 guys, who they hopefully won't need to go to as quickly.

Agreed. We need a total of roughly 60-65 starts from the starters vying for the #4 and #5 spots in the rotation if the top 3 are healthy all year - more if they aren't. Most likely we will need 70 plus starts from that group. We aren't going to get that from 2 pitchers or even 3. We will need at least 4 and maybe more. My guess is that Paddack gets 20-25 starts, same for SWR, 15-20 for Festa, 10-15 for Matthews, and 5 or so from "other".  To me, that's why we keep Paddack unless some team wants to trade us a starting caliber OF bat for him, which seems unlikely.

If we can get 23-25 starts, 120-140 innings of 4 - 4.3 ERA work from Paddack he will be a great addition to the rotation at a very good price. I'm hopeful we can. I put the odds at 60/40 in favor but hey, I'm an optimist. 

[amjgt]

When's the deadline for making a QO?

"Alexa, set a reminder for November 19th at 3pm"

 

[DJL44]

5 hours ago, Fatbat said:

Yeah, historically, he gets hurt, wears down, throws garbage. The Twins have 10 possible starters and most of them won’t throw 200 innings. 

Quote

Since Derek Falvey took over the front office (2017), there have only been six times when a starting pitcher threw more than 180 innings in one season

They added one more last year (Lopez with 185). Ober was close with 178. I don't think the Twins want ANY of their starting pitchers to throw 200 innings.

[Fatbat]

28 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

Agreed. We need a total of roughly 60-65 starts from the starters vying for the #4 and #5 spots in the rotation if the top 3 are healthy all year - more if they aren't. Most likely we will need 70 plus starts from that group. We aren't going to get that from 2 pitchers or even 3. We will need at least 4 and maybe more. My guess is that Paddack gets 20-25 starts, same for SWR, 15-20 for Festa, 10-15 for Matthews, and 5 or so from "other".  To me, that's why we keep Paddack unless some team wants to trade us a starting caliber OF bat for him, which seems unlikely.

If we can get 23-25 starts, 120-140 innings of 4 - 4.3 ERA work from Paddack he will be a great addition to the rotation at a very good price. I'm hopeful we can. I put the odds at 60/40 in favor but hey, I'm an optimist. 

Agreed. and its going to boil down to who is healthy in Sept/Oct. Is the team killing it and focusing on a deep playoff run? If HEALTHY, we know who our 3 post season starters will be and Paddack will look great sitting out in the bullpen next to Varland. 

[Fatbat]

2 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

They added one more last year (Lopez with 185). Ober was close with 178. I don't think the Twins want ANY of their starting pitchers to throw 200 innings.

All the ex twins didn’t work out so well for the cards. 
the only starters throwing 200 innings are the 3 playoff starters and they shouldn’t be throwing the 200th inning until its in the post season. 

[JD-TWINS]

Paddack should be targeted for max effort innings and about 16-18/month. Used couple times per week for 2 innings plus or minus a guy or two……..102 innings…….maybe one spot start per month (3 innings) to give the other 5 guys an extra day off once in a while.

I think he could get his ERA down around 3.60 if he isn’t facing guys multiple times in an outing. His velocity will play better as well.

He can’t physically hold up AND pitch well in the starting rotation over more than a month at a time.

[old nurse]

7 hours ago, Fezig said:

I never thought I'd think this but why not... How about a 6 man staff keeping Festa and Paddack, with one caveat. No more five inning games. Let them stretch it out a little bit since they'll have an extra day off.

They go by pitch count for the game. High pitch counts have been shown to be worse for pitchers. The upper limit seems to be 100

[old nurse]

Considering Paddack with his back, others with their back and oblique issues if the players have figured out they have to do core exercises to try to decrease injuries 

[tony&rodney]

17 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

You can quote me on this. If Anne Hathaway wants to go on a date with me I’m all in. 

She doesn't.

[Linus]

50 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

She doesn't.

I’ve always enjoyed her company.

[ashbury]

35 minutes ago, Linus said:

I’ve always enjoyed her company.

She's just a spokesperson.  She doesn't actually own Lancôme.

[bean5302]

16 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

Because...

A) He has a career WHIP of 1.190
B) He has a SO/BB of 4.69.
C) And...

I get it. He had another seven starts, a couple of which were so-so/weak and several of which were atrocious. In total, nearly a third of his earned runs came in two of his 17 starts and more than half came in four. 

As the OP notes, the issue is consistency, but when a guy throws that many solid to very good games (including some of the team's best starts of the year), it's worth going back to him to see if the percentage of good starts can increase in the second year back from TJS.

Will Paddack make the full 32 starts? Very doubtful, based on history. Frankly, I'm guessing the Twins don't think he will either.

But realistically, if Festa's career high in innings is 124 and he's only spent a bit more than a half season at AAA, he's not going to make 32 starts either. However, with injuries, Festa is probably going to get 20 or more starts in the majors no matter what. The question is whether those 20 come in April-August or if they start a few weeks into the season.

Paddack is one more arrow in the quiver. His 20 or starts aren't going to come at the expense of the No. 6 guy, Festa. They are going to come at the expense of the Nos. 9 or 10 guys, who they hopefully won't need to go to as quickly.

Wouldn't it be great if we could ignore half the starts for pitchers and magically waive a wand over them to make them healthy? Your argument ignores what Paddack has been over his career to focus on who he is on his best days. It's an incredible cherry pick presented in a terribly manipulative fashion.

[IndianaTwin]

On 2/20/2025 at 5:04 PM, bean5302 said:

Wouldn't it be great if we could ignore half the starts for pitchers and magically waive a wand over them to make them healthy? Your argument ignores what Paddack has been over his career to focus on who he is on his best days. It's an incredible cherry pick presented in a terribly manipulative fashion.

I’m not ignoring the 7 of 17 of his starts. I acknowledged I was cherry picking. I said, “Here’s his good starts and they were very good. He also had bad starts.” I also acknowledged that he likely won’t make it through the whole season healthy.

Beyond that, you picked and chose season stats that aren’t very good (i.e., noting that he hasn’t had both ERA and FIP under 3.95 in the same year; for what it’s worth, Ryan has only done that once and Ober has only done it in his 11-start season — that’s a tough standard), so I highlighted career stats that are quite good (1.190 WHIP, when the league average was 1.27 last year; 4.69 K/BB, when the league average was 2.76 last year). I could have added that his career FIP is a reasonable 3.99, when the league average last year was 4.08.

I’m just saying that when a guy shows that level of success on his good days, has had indicators of success elsewhere and is in year 2 of coming back from TJS, he’s going to get opportunities. And in the Twins context, I think it’s a good move to give him a shot. LA Vikes tossed out 23-25 starts, with 120-140 innings at 4-4.3 ERA as a successful season for him. Like Vikes, I’m an optimist, and I’d be pleased with that level of performance in the role he’s being asked to serve.

For 2025, I think Paddack has a better likelihood of giving those stats than Raya/Lewis/Morris/Dobnak/Ynoa, etc., for example. Those are the guys that Paddack will take starts from, not Festa and Matthews.

Said another way, if Festa and Matthews are Nos. 6 and 7 on the depth chart, it’s almost a certainty that at least one of them will make a start by the end of April and the other by mid-May or so, very likely earlier in both cases. I’d rather not go into a season where I’m assuming that Raya or Lewis will need to make a start by mid-May.

 

[Fezig]

22 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Because of Lopez, Ryan and Ober, why takes starts from them to give to lesser pitchers? Now if you said you wanted to keep those 6 pitchers and piggy back SWR with Festa for a while, that makes sense.

I'm good with any six pitchers. I just want starting pitchers to go beyond 4 1/3 innings. 

[Fezig]

16 hours ago, old nurse said:

They go by pitch count for the game. High pitch counts have been shown to be worse for pitchers. The upper limit seems to be 100

"James Andrews, the renowned orthopedic surgeon, suggested 100 -- a ballpark figure -- in a 1999 study titled "Elbow Injuries in Young Baseball Players" with James Whiteside. Even 17 years later, this study is still frequently cited. The 100-pitch limit suggestion took hold, and it seems over time, the suggestion lost its ambiguity.

There's no data to suggest that 100 is the magic number of fatigue, after which injuries increase at an alarming rate.

There's no information that's been collected that labels the 100th pitch as a saturation point of effectiveness either.

It's an arbitrary number -- a ballpark figure. One must presume it was well-estimated, but it was an estimation nonetheless.

But over time, the estimation became the law.'"

 

And this is one time I don't believe in the equal application of "the law"

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, Fezig said:

"James Andrews, the renowned orthopedic surgeon, suggested 100 -- a ballpark figure -- in a 1999 study titled "Elbow Injuries in Young Baseball Players" with James Whiteside. Even 17 years later, this study is still frequently cited. The 100-pitch limit suggestion took hold, and it seems over time, the suggestion lost its ambiguity.

There's no data to suggest that 100 is the magic number of fatigue, after which injuries increase at an alarming rate.

There's no information that's been collected that labels the 100th pitch as a saturation point of effectiveness either.

It's an arbitrary number -- a ballpark figure. One must presume it was well-estimated, but it was an estimation nonetheless.

But over time, the estimation became the law.'"

 

And this is one time I don't believe in the equal application of "the law"

Every arm is. Going to be different. Let’s just err on the side of stupidity rather than safety 

[Fezig]

23 hours ago, old nurse said:

Every arm is. Going to be different. Let’s just err on the side of stupidity rather than safety 

Now you're starting to get it! 

[old nurse]

16 minutes ago, Fezig said:

Now you're starting to get it! 

You apparently do not get that part of safety in preventing injuries 

[Fezig]

On 2/22/2025 at 7:17 AM, old nurse said:

You apparently do not get that part of safety in preventing injuries 

I don't get it. Because I won't assume every human being is built the same way and I have an understanding that getting to 100 pitches varies on how you got there. I do get that the 100 # was completely arbitrary and there are thousands of cases throughout history that 100 pitches was just getting warmed up for some pitchers. 

[old nurse]

5 hours ago, Fezig said:

I don't get it. Because I won't assume every human being is built the same way and I have an understanding that getting to 100 pitches varies on how you got there. I do get that the 100 # was completely arbitrary and there are thousands of cases throughout history that 100 pitches was just getting warmed up for some pitchers. 

Only 23 starting pitchers made 32 or more starts last year. You seem to think that pitching more will solve that In the last 4 years in the major and minor leagues almost 1200 UCL surgeries were done, pitching. 20% never make it back to what they were/ Yet pitching  more will solve this. NIH data shows that 15% of the pitchers develop shoulder issues every year. Pitching more will solve that. Whatever. Last year between 450 and 500 pitchers spent time on the dl with over 30000 man days lost. Keep looking for the unicorn that is only warming up at 100 pitches 

[Fezig]

4 hours ago, old nurse said:

Only 23 starting pitchers made 32 or more starts last year. You seem to think that pitching more will solve that In the last 4 years in the major and minor leagues almost 1200 UCL surgeries were done, pitching. 20% never make it back to what they were/ Yet pitching  more will solve this. NIH data shows that 15% of the pitchers develop shoulder issues every year. Pitching more will solve that. Whatever. Last year between 450 and 500 pitchers spent time on the dl with over 30000 man days lost. Keep looking for the unicorn that is only warming up at 100 pitches 

I actually think less pitching will allow them to pitch more. All the specialized training as youth. In my younger days kids were taught the fastball, fastball, or fastball. Maybe an occasional change up. Also, all the off-season workouts that don't allow off season rest.

Your stat that there were 1200 surgeries doesn't help your cause if you're stating that 100 pitches makes it safer. How many surgeries were there between 1981-1985 when pitchers could pitch longer? 

Lastly, the focus on overthrowing and trying to increase from 91mph to 96mph definitely puts more strain on the arm, and body. Instead of velocity, teach control and getting the batter off balance. 

So endeth the lesson.