Injuries Set Up Twins Pitching Splurge

Resigning Pineda and trading for a starter completes the rotation.  If we trade for a starter like Bassitt then he and Pineda will cost almost as much as Rodon by himself.  

Totally agree they need to sign Rodon. If not they might need to just go into 2022 as a transition. 
while I appreciate the article can we finally stop with Falvine as a pitching guru?  There is zero evidence of this in Cleveland or with the Twins yet it gets stated on this site repeatedly. 

5 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

I'll take Rodon for sure, but I'd like to hear more on why he's a must. Most pundits seem to think Rodon is destined for a one or two year deal, are you of the mind to give him a longer deal? No judgments; honestly asking. I wouldn't completely be against it if there was reason to think he could stay relatively healthy.

Because with Ober, Ryan and Bundy listed as the three other starters, I don't think there is a fifth pitcher on the planet to pair with that motley crew to make this team a contender next year. So to me, Rodon on a short deal would seem more like an olive branch to the fans with the team acknowledging that it's going to be a rebuild season but they'll at least give us one proven starter to put in the rotation.

I would love to get Rodon on a 1 or 2 year deal.  They played 500 ball the last 2 months with Pineda / Ober / Ryan.  I never believed they we going to contend next year but I still would rather have a 500 team than a 70 win team.  Maybe he becomes a trade piece or maybe he works out and signs an extension.  Either way, Rodon on a short deal is a good deal.

I'd have no issue with Rodon on a 2 year deal with a 3rd year option if the medicals are solid. The guy was a 3rd overall draft pick, behind Aiken and Kolek (neither of which panned out) and he showed last year how nasty his stuff can be. And he threw a no-hitter. I'd love to see the Twins get him, plus trade for another good starter (Montas?), and sign Pineda as well. They need pitching.

I believe Pineda would be a good safety net for Ober, Ryan, or the Bundy experiment. If they all do well, maybe Pineda could transition to the pen, as he is essentially a two pitch pitcher who throws strikes. Or we could trade one pitcher midseason if the staff health holds up.

Here is me putting on my rose colored glasses...........but if as an organization you believe that many of these young pitchers who were injured and hurt in 2021 are close to big league ready and going to be difference makers why spend a bunch of $ in free agency when you have young cheap talent at the top of the minor league system creating a log jam.  

I dont want the Twins to spend $ just to spend it.  I dont think the 2022 Twins season is all doom and gloom at this point.  The CBA i believe is going to change a lot of the trade land scape and i hope the picking prospects are closer to the big leagues then we think. 

I would be shocked if they signed Rodon.  They haven't been in play for anyone except Bundy and one mention on Ray after everyone was pissed they weren't in on anyone.

They will probably bring back Pineda and hopefully they can find a good trade or 2.

Maybe Maeda can throw left handed?

What would be Rodon's reason to pitch for the Twins?

I mean they have 2 choices.  Sign Rodon and Pineda then you'd have Bundy, Ober and Ryan to complete the rotation.  Or you punt next year and see what they can develop.  I mean 7 of their top 10 prospects are pitchers.  Bring them up and let them fly.  I mean next year won't be good but if you hit on 2 or 3 of those kids now you have a very bright future.  But if you don't bring them up, then you never know what you have and the future is still bleak because you don't know and will continue to not know what they have.  So either go with Rodon and Pineda or go with the young guys.  

If you go with the young guys you could run out a 6 man rotation to limit their innings and such.  But do one or the other, I'd hate to see them half ass it again with a shoemaker type singing.

11 hours ago, ashbury said:

The problem is our organization can't seem to keep the young cinnamon rolls from getting injured.  

In addition we drafted some players we thought were cinnamon rolls who never rose (get it?) to that level (Kohl Stewart, Stephen Gonsalves, Tyler Jay, Alex Wimmers, Ryan Eades, Luke Bard, Mason Melotakis, Hudson Boyd all first or second-round picks other than Gonsalves who could be part of the team now but aren't). Berrios in 2012 and Gibson in 2009 are the last two high draft picks with some pitching success for the team.

Let's hope Chase Petty breaks the streak.

I feel like the must is signing Pineda. That not being done prior to the lockout is concerning. Rodon was great, but there is so much risk. If it were my money (thankfully it isn't), I wouldn't give him more than two years, three with incentives. I doubt that would get it done. 

It's ugly, but unless something remarkable comes along, I'd go with Pineda, Bundy, and the combo of all the guys that need to build up innings-wise: Dobnak, Ober, Ryan, Sands, Balazovic, Duran, Jax, Strotman, Thorpe, Winder, Vallimont and Woods Richardson. 

We need to figure out who we've got. Between the juiced ball year (2019), COVID year (2020), and year of young pitchers' arms falling off (2021), getting a real evaluation of this team cannot have been simple. There aren't core-type pitchers left in FA. We could dumpster dive, but I think that's silly. Set up the St. Paul-MSP merry-go-round and let's figure out who our core guys are.  

6 hours ago, Monkeypaws said:

What would be Rodon's reason to pitch for the Twins?

Get back at the White Sox for not signing him.  I am being 98% facetious but that's all I got.

6 hours ago, Twodogs said:

I mean they have 2 choices.  Sign Rodon and Pineda then you'd have Bundy, Ober and Ryan to complete the rotation.  Or you punt next year and see what they can develop.  I mean 7 of their top 10 prospects are pitchers.  Bring them up and let them fly.  I mean next year won't be good but if you hit on 2 or 3 of those kids now you have a very bright future.  But if you don't bring them up, then you never know what you have and the future is still bleak because you don't know and will continue to not know what they have.  So either go with Rodon and Pineda or go with the young guys.  

If you go with the young guys you could run out a 6 man rotation to limit their innings and such.  But do one or the other, I'd hate to see them half ass it again with a shoemaker type singing.

Their inactivity would suggest they are thinking like you.  They could trade away their best long-term assets for a 2 year shot at contention and hope it works out or they can use 2022 to position the team for the next decade.  Fans tend to go for option 1, ownership and therefore front offices tend to go for option 2.

If we head to spring training, if there is one, with the current pitching staff we better all prepare for a very ugly summer of baseball.  The prospects that everyone is touting better produce or we are back to a 90-100 loss season.  I'm also hoping that Buxton can pitch lol.  If he is the only "addition" then this FO needs to go.

I will say again, that Ryan and Ober need to be considered ONE pitcher in a starting rotation.  I could see each of them pitching 100-110 innings.  That's 200-220 innings.  They need a COUPLE of arms.

I would:  Think very hard during this break what my #1 priority is NOW (now that Buxton is signed).  Is it a SS like Story or a SP like Rodon.  That's the BIG DECISION.  I might sign Pineda first (and quickly) because ONE SP won't be enough.  Big Mike is a known commodity.  He will pitch to an acceptable level.  Spend at least one stint on the I.L. but for the most part be "steady."  If I sign Rodon, I make a trade with Oakland for Frankie Montas.  It would be something along the lines of Arraez, Sabato and Sands.  Then my SP is:  Rodon, Montas, Bundy, Pineda, Ryan, Ober.  That's 6 guys and I can lean on minor league depth for spot starts and such.  I also would make a smaller trade for Mondesi or DeJong to get a SS.  Both should be available because there are players who have moved past them.  

If I decide to go with Story instead I expand the trade with Oakland by including Larnach and maybe another smaller sweetener to include Bassitt.  Then the SP staff looks like this:  Montas, Bassitt, Bundy, Pineda, Ryan and Ober.  I have Donaldson, Story, Polanco and Kiriloff in the IF.  Garver & Jeffers catching and Buxton & Kepler in the OF.  I need a LF'er.  Miranda, Celestino & Martin could compete for it.  I could sign a vet at a bargain price instead.

That team can compete with the White Sox, Tigers and anybody else.  I still have PLENTY of young minor league pitchers to evaluate and elevate as needed throughout the season and I still have Lewis, Martin and other highly thought of prospects to evaluate and elevate as needed during the season if their play in the minors dictates that and/or injuries force my hand.  

I will keep pounding the drum on this:  We were the two-time defending division champs.  We had a dumpster fire last season but we still have TALENT.  We CAN and SHOULD compete for the division crown in 2022 and beyond.  

If we could get Montas, I would be all for it. I don't believe we get him for a grab bag of Arraez, Sabato and Sands. I think we would lose Lewis or Martin in a trade for Montas. He's a young and very good SP. That's just my thinking, but I've seen this proposed trade a few times, and wanted to add my two cents to it. 

Has there been any reporting about Isiah Kiner-Falefa? He seems get-able and would be a solid starting SS that we could transition to utility if/when Lewis took over. 

2 hours ago, TopGunn#22 said:

I will say again, that Ryan and Ober need to be considered ONE pitcher in a starting rotation.  I could see each of them pitching 100-110 innings.  That's 200-220 innings.  They need a COUPLE of arms.

I think we are going to see a very unconventional usage by the Twins this year and most likely a trend away from conventual usage across the league.  I would not be surprised if the Twins have a few 3-5 inning starters and a number of 2 inning RPs and only 3-4 single inning RPs.  I would not be shocked if Alcala was used in a 3-4 inning capacity.  If that went really well he might transition to a traditional starting role.  Then, again, they might feel his value is high leverage situations.  It's going to be interesting.  If they are used 3-4 innings at a time will they be used every 4th day on average or will it be a way to manage IP?

Let's not forget two things:

One is that the offense is good now, and there's a very good chance that the pitching staff will develop around the time that the offense starts to decline. I know there is a lot of upcoming talent on the offensive side, but we know what we have now, we have no certainty of what is to come. We could have used free agency as a way to preserve the competitive window that has been open for a few years now without leveraging future prospects. We really could have had it both ways, by winning now while also keeping the future in tact.

The second is that big additions like a front-end SP or a Trevor Story level SS would most likely be part of the present, and the future. If we sign Story or Correa (I know) to a long term deal they are part of the future and solidify a lineup both now and when the core shifts to the prospects. This would have been a really good reason for a #1 or #2 starter to anchor a rotation that is still in development, like the Tigers did by signing Rodriguez, or the Mariners signing Ray.

I'm a little surprised that that never came up, spending money doesn't deplete our farm system, and it leaves us with pieces that could contribute for years. Watching this wait-and-see approach with the pitching staff makes me nervous that we will go from a team with good offense and bad pitching to the exact opposite.

I'm sory, you still need rotation arms that can do two things. One, get you beyond five innings a good chunk of the time.

Also, it is nice if a pitcher can do 30 starts minimum and the ideal rotation is at least four arms that can pitch 150+ innings, to keep the bullpen effective.

Sadly, few of the prospects outside of Ober will even pass 100 innings in 2022. But there is enough arms on the 40-man that you can run the St. Paul shuttle. Depending on how much you feel they have to pitch competitive in St. Paul.

On 12/9/2021 at 1:20 PM, nicksaviking said:

I'll take Rodon for sure, but I'd like to hear more on why he's a must. Most pundits seem to think Rodon is destined for a one or two year deal, are you of the mind to give him a longer deal? No judgments; honestly asking. I wouldn't completely be against it if there was reason to think he could stay relatively healthy.

Maybe the consensus among predictions for Rodón's contract is that he'll take a short-term deal to prove he's healthy - I probably haven't read enough of the pundits to know - but one counterpoint to this was in Fangraphs' free agent predictions article: because of his checkered injury history, teams might want a longer-term deal, in order to get more chances at the "good," fully healthy Rodón. That's assuming he's healthy now.

On 12/10/2021 at 9:45 AM, awmonahan said:

If we could get Montas, I would be all for it. I don't believe we get him for a grab bag of Arraez, Sabato and Sands. I think we would lose Lewis or Martin in a trade for Montas. He's a young and very good SP. That's just my thinking, but I've seen this proposed trade a few times, and wanted to add my two cents to it.

It might depend on how motivated Oakland is to cut payroll. Probably the rumors from early in the offseason, that they'd radically slash payroll to as little as $40-50 million, will end up being overblown. Maybe those rumors have people imagining the As' players coming cheaper than they really will.

Arráez is more valuable than a "grab bag" player IMO, and Sands is just below the top tier of Twins pitching prospects. But I see your point - how much less valuable is Montas in trade than Berríos? Montas has less of a track record, and midseason urgency may have driven up the price for the Jays to trade for Berríos. But if you think they're loosely comparable, then Lewis or Martin would likely be in the trade conversation at least.

If anything, that could be an argument for trading for Bassitt or Manaea. Those guys having only one year of team control left shouldn't matter too much to the Twins right now, when they need starting pitching so badly, and it would keep the acquisition cost lower.

Skipping free agency and going the trade route doesn't make sense to me. One way just costs money and the other doesn't improve your organization as much or at all because you must give up talent. The Maeda trade shows just how important it is to the front office to not have to spend retail on pitching.

Getting great deals like Maeda's ridiculously team friendly deal, Odo's super low aquisition cost and Pineda's cheap injury impacted deals are great and everything, but are they always available? We will see. If I was running the team, I would be willing to spend retail on a top anchor for the rotation. Isn't it a competitive advantage to add talent while stockpiling talent? There is no reason you can't do that and still have a middling, say $140m, payroll.

Cripes the deals for Rodriguez and Gray were pretty reasonable. Many are much higher on Stroman than me, and he did get about $22m a year, but it's only 3 years. I can understand not wanting to sign 5-6 years at $110-140m, but if you are going that route, then you better be aggressive in free agency because you are only going to have a couple of options. 

All that being said, we still have to wait quite a while before we can judge the Falvine off-season.