NEWS: Twins Hire Rays Minor-League Coach Brian Reith as New Pitching Coach

[AceWrigley]

I'm a Twins fan, I can comment, if I have to, I guess.

[AceWrigley]

1 hour ago, 1985Fan said:

Wrong good sir… That is a Groucho Marx quote from his tv show that I cant recall the name of now. 

You Bet Your Life.

[1985Fan]

9 minutes ago, AceWrigley said:

You Bet Your Life.

Thats it. Good recall. 

[TheLeviathan]

If nothing else.....I'm happy they made a quick, decisive move.

[Vanimal46]

4 hours ago, ashbury said:

Not being qualified to comment, I have no opinion on this or any move.

I’m old enough to remember when you could Ask Jeeves a topic and the first page of search results were academic research papers on the subject 

[ashbury]

9 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

I’m old enough to remember when you could Ask Jeeves a topic and the first page of search results were academic research papers on the subject 

I'm old enough to remember going to the library, and looking at the research papers in person, in order to form an opinion on a topic.

[SF Twins Fan]

I wonder if he and Joe Ryan crossed paths in the minor leagues?

[Linus]

43 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I'm old enough to remember going to the library, and looking at the research papers in person, in order to form an opinion on a topic.

Stone tablets?

[MeleMouth]

As a serious comment, which I'm totally 100% absolutely competent to give, this hiring is fine, but the MLB pitching coach is just the tip of the iceberg for getting good prospects and developing them to succeed in the majors.

The Twins during the Falvey era were good at identifying talent, but most of the talent they gathered seemed to either top out at AA or find another level or two when they went to other teams, often after being discarded by the Twins for nothing or close to it.

Hopefully the new pitching coach is given authority to change the entire development program. 

[IndianaTwin]

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

I'm old enough to remember going to the library, and looking at the research papers in person, in order to form an opinion on a topic.

Walking uphill both ways, barefoot and through snow, I presume?

[Vanimal46]

35 minutes ago, MeleMouth said:

Hopefully the new pitching coach is given authority to change the entire development program. 

If Jeremy Zoll isn’t in charge of the development program, or the direction the MLB team is going per Tom P, well…

[AlLagoon]

Tampa Bay won the AL East and is  competing for an AL title with one of the lowest payrolls in the game.

They drafted and developed the Twins best pitchers, Ryan. and Bradley.

Gimme anything that comes from that organization, and more!

[twinssporto]

2 hours ago, ashbury said:

I'm old enough to remember going to the library, and looking at the research papers in person, in order to form an opinion on a topic.

I was in the micro phish (SP?) era. Was that before or after you?

[ashbury]

26 minutes ago, twinssporto said:

Was that before or after you?

Yes.™

 

(But yeah, microfiche was the way to scan through lots of newspapers etc.)

[S Bart]

It would be helpful if he could bring a "Crash Davis" with him from Durham to mentor the pitchers.  

 

 

 

[DataNerd]

5 hours ago, TNtwins85 said:

 Would tend to agree. And the last point of drafting absolute studs those tend to come in the 1st round unless you can develop them. Too many 2nd, 3rd round HS pitchers getting hurt or never developing and spending 1st round picks on the Lewis’, Larnachs and Cavaco’s of the world. They didn’t pan out either. That’s a lose lose. I really wanted them to take Flora this last draft. Big risk big reward on top tier 1st round pitchers. Also big risk big reward on position players that have mostly been 30-50% outcomes. 

In terms of hitter/pitcher in a vacuum I would disagree; of the top 20 SP by fWAR, 4 were taken top 10 and another 3 were later 1st round picks, while there were 6 guys taken outside the top 100 (Schlitter, Cease, Skubal, Rasmussen, deGrom, Woo).  But we are average at drafting/developing hitters, so it could make sense to lean into our strength in a draft where we weren't passing up on a guy like Lackey.

[HarmonK03]

14 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

One comment in the article really stood out.

"Kalk is now an assistant general manager with the Twins, and his relationship with Reith should help the team get the messages they feel need to be relayed from the front office out to the mound more smoothly than ever."

Why is the front office relaying messages to the mound?  Is the front office now part of the pitching coach staff????

This comment leads me to believe that they are going to push analytics even more onto the pitching staff.  Kalk is the analytics guru of the front office and has no baseball experience and they value this relationship.  Analytics has a place as a tool but my concern it will be the driving decision maker.

I actually don't mind the hire, was hoping for someone with major league experience but at least he came from a well run system and had been there for a while.

[HarmonK03]

8 hours ago, AlLagoon said:

They drafted and developed the Twins best pitchers, Ryan. and Bradley.

Are you referring to the same Bradley that Tampa sent to AAA before trading because they could not unlock his talent.  I was not a huge Pete Maki fan, but he or someone on the Twins helped Bradley take the next step not Tampa.

[Whammy]

9 hours ago, AlLagoon said:

Tampa Bay won the AL East and is  competing for an AL title with one of the lowest payrolls in the game.

They drafted and developed the Twins best pitchers, Ryan. and Bradley.

Gimme anything that comes from that organization, and more!

By that standard, the Twins signed and developed David Ortiz

[Riverbrian]

Congrats to Brian on the new position. It's been my experience that people named Brian are exceptional. 

With that said. 

Get to work. You are going to hit a starting pitching wall after this season. 

[Twins GFP]

I  kind of feel sorry for Reith. If the Twins don't put out the #1 ranked pitching staff next year and get the absolute most out of every pitching prospect, the TD comment board will be calling for his head very quickly.

[TNtwins85]

8 hours ago, DataNerd said:

In terms of hitter/pitcher in a vacuum I would disagree; of the top 20 SP by fWAR, 4 were taken top 10 and another 3 were later 1st round picks, while there were 6 guys taken outside the top 100 (Schlitter, Cease, Skubal, Rasmussen, deGrom, Woo).  But we are average at drafting/developing hitters, so it could make sense to lean into our strength in a draft where we weren't passing up on a guy like Lackey.

I would usually tend to agree and it’s hard to pass on a guy like Lackey at 3  for a pitcher like Flora but the pitching cupboard is looking pretty bare and I’m not sure who that next wave is. Especially when you’ve got Pablo and Ryan in their last years. Ober can’t find 90 mph, Abel looks the part but who knows after missing a whole season Matthews looks more like a bullpen guy and Prielipp looked good but you wonder how many bullets are left in the gun and no top tier reinforcements on the horizon. The depth is lacking and they dove deeper than I think they wanted to this year. They should have went heavy on pitching one of the last 2-3 years to restock the depth. Your big point though that I agree with. International guys! Where is the international pitching depth? Terrible job in an area where talent is abundant. In an area based on just shear numbers and scouting they should be signing pitchers internationally in droves. If you get enough lottery tickets a couple are bound to hit. 

[Andy MacPhail]

I love their rationale of poaching a coach who's directly involved in a system that really works. A blend of analytics & experience. Being able to relay analytics practically to the pitchers & able to relate to them.

[Patzky]

17 hours ago, arby58 said:

In that case, consider me entirely unqualified as well.

If you gotta account you're supremely qualified. 

It's them bots you gotta watch.

[MeleMouth]

1 hour ago, Whammy said:

By that standard, the Twins signed and developed David Ortiz

Mariners signed and developed David Ortiz (Arias). If anything, the Twins development program harmed Ortiz.

[MeleMouth]

2 hours ago, HarmonK03 said:

Are you referring to the same Bradley that Tampa sent to AAA before trading because they could not unlock his talent.  I was not a huge Pete Maki fan, but he or someone on the Twins helped Bradley take the next step not Tampa.

This is terrible logic. Year after year, Tampa has a top-ranked pitching staff on a low player budget. They continually take cast-offs from other teams and turn them into valuable pitchers. This year's staff got 3.1 fWAR from pitchers the Twins didn't want any more; besides Griffin Jax (1.6), they got good results from Cam Booser (0.8), Tyler Wells (0.4, just after the trade from Baltimore), and Casey Legumina (0.3), which is collectively more than the 2.8 the Twins got from Bradley.

Certainly, Bradley had a fine year with the Twins, but saying that Tampa isn't good because one pitcher did better after leaving Tampa is illogically using one instance to deny a general truth.

[Whammy]

8 minutes ago, MeleMouth said:

This is terrible logic. Year after year, Tampa has a top-ranked pitching staff on a low player budget. They continually take cast-offs from other teams and turn them into valuable pitchers. This year's staff got 3.1 fWAR from pitchers the Twins didn't want any more; besides Griffin Jax (1.6), they got good results from Cam Booser (0.8), Tyler Wells (0.4, just after the trade from Baltimore), and Casey Legumina (0.3), which is collectively more than the 2.8 the Twins got from Bradley.

Certainly, Bradley had a fine year with the Twins, but saying that Tampa isn't good because one pitcher did better after leaving Tampa is illogically using one instance to deny a general truth.

That's quite a leap from someone not giving Tampa credit for Taj Bradley's success to "saying that Tampa isn't good"

[Scott51104]

"I'm a Twins fan, I can comment, if I have to, I guess."

Keep your stick on the ice

[David Maro]

Who cares who they hired as PC,their job is in the title. Far too many pitchers are not pitching. Now it's all about throwing 100+and they have no idea where the ball is going. If you watch someone like the Mis he is just trying to throw 104 past hitters. And all you hear about hitters is that they are working to increase their bat speed. The other thing is teams don't care if an injury happens because they have a replacement ready. What happened to a pitcher fielding their position. They throw the pitch and are falling off the mound off balance and not in a position to protect themselves. What is it going to take to get this to change,a major injury that no one wants to see.

[strumdatjag]

19 hours ago, 1985Fan said:

Wrong good sir… That is a Groucho Marx quote from his tv show that I cant recall the name of now. 

Groucho’s TV show was “You Bet Your Life”.  It was a game show with Groucho as the wise cracking host.  
However, Harpo and Chico did play a little baseball at the end of “Night at the Opera”.