A Tale Of Two Transitions

Just boggles my mind why he is still being used in the pen. Could have easily been stretched out in Rochester his first rehab assignment. Probably would have been in the rotation by now gaining steam heading into next year. I don't think Molitor is incompetent as a manager but this is on a list of a handful of moves that make no sense to me. May is a starter! Why is milone still on this team? Someone needs to run this team like a 2016 business instead of a liberal congressional district

When Ryan was canned the explanation should have been twofold.  Sano to RF & May to the pen.  If Molitor was complicit and not just following orders (Sano leaving RF around the same time Ryan gets fired causes doubt but May remaining in the pen lessens the doubt) he should be next to go.

"Yes, it was a long time ago, tracing to the start beginning of this lengthy era of organizational ineptitude."

 

That was not 2011, more like 1995

 

And then (also unrelated) a young starter by the name of Eddie Guardado was switched to the bullpen

and Hawkins and Perkins.  Can't think of any others OTTOMH.

I'm not sure [and May's statements alluded to it] that May didn't have this problem as a starter.  That with enough rest, stretching, etc. between starts kept it in check.

Sometimes the switch works, sometimes it doesn't.  This is a not.

EDIT:  Joe Nathan

A plan?  A team that rises like the cubs has a plan, the Astros had a plan - the Twins make it up from week to week.  Put your players in their best position.  If that leaves a weak position, address it, but not by reducing the quality in another area. 

Completely agree.  The Twins appear to operate in a vacuum at times.  As you mentioned, moving May to rotation would leave a hole in the bullpen, but again as you mentioned that can be addressed both externally and internally.  Nolasco and Milone are not better starters than May in my opinion.  The team should put players in positions to succeed, clearly the bullpen is causing issue for May from a health standpoint.

Additionally, incrementally the improvement from Milone to May is likely to be greater than the regression from May to his replacement in the bullpen. 

Wait, were the Twins wrong about Slowey? He ended up being pretty terrible after that breakout season right? Just because a starter had immediate success doesn't mean they'll have sustainable success. Slowey wasn't better than pavano or duensing or Blackburn despite having 1 good year. May should start, but i think we need to be realistic about our expectations regarding his results and health.

Trevor May bullpen vs. starting is catching up to Joe Mauer as far as posts on this site.

Yes, May didn't shine in 2014 as a starter. But he did show promise. He was also a bit rough in 2015 and pulled it together in a role out of the pen. But he still has the mix. He learned.

Come 2016, he was used a lot out of the gate...multiple days, short stops in a game. Not a long man, not a setup, not given a role. Just put out there as a member of a bullpen.

This is 21st century baseball. We now have roles. We have top of the rotation starters who can give us 200 innings and a chance to win every time they pitch. We have middle guys who might just keep us in the game. We have that 5th guy who might reach 125-130 innings and then be replaced by a similar soul. We have specialists in the bullpen. The closer. Two guys who see the ball in the 9th. We have a long guy. If you have the luxury, someone who can get a groundball, someone who can get a fly ball, someone who can strike someone out. And you have a couple of them coming in from the left side who can do more than jsut get their one guy out.

Maybe The Twins Way is that everyone can play anywhere on the diamond when called upon. Sometimes it works for awhile (Nunez this season), but at some point, you develop a player and you leave them there and you either trade that player eventually when someone else comes along (Dougie M and A.J.) or move that prospect (Polanco, Sano perhaps). But you don't start shuffling guys around for the heck of it. Your system should be strong enough that are are always looking at depth of three at a position for the next five years (like the Twins at catcher right now, eh). Someone is moving the little standups around the cardtable and seeing what your lineup would look like with so-and-so, and what it MAY look like next year, or three years down the line. If you need to change a position, you do it BEFORE you egt to the majors.

Of course, starting pitchers are a different case. You can get by with 2 or 3 pitches in the minors, but once you hit the majors, you better have four. Maybe you can be role arm in the bullpen if you don't adapt. Going to the bullpen is not necessarily a step-down...it is, afterall, a major league job. But it is also a mindset, like how every bullpen guy can't close a game...how every starter has trouble getting thru that batting order the third time, how batters can't adjust when the other team actually looks at the tape they have on your swing.

At best, when they IMMEDITATELY moved May into the bullpen in spring training, I was hoping they would still stretch him out, making him that - most time - minimum three inning guy, possibly becoming a spot starter rather than dipping down to the Deans and Albers in the organization. At worst, when Perkins started to falter, I was wondering if they would try him at closer, which almost seemed the case when he was working consecutive days, but not in the high pressure situation.

Somehow, I think, we have THE LOST SEASON OF TREVOR MAY. Nothing was accomplished. He moved backwards more than forwards. Even if you to rebrand him as a starter, can he pitch 150 innings in 2017...can he go 175...and what is his homework assignment for the off-season.

Are the Twins thinking that far ahead? Or is/was it a total system failure.

Whew....... read the topic and thought the Jenner clan was at it again....

I was always under the impression that the decision to move May to the bullpen was based along the lines that May only was effective for 5 innings.  Using Fangraphs (2013-2015), as a starter, May started 25 games was 7-14, with at 5.61 ERA and averaged 5.06 innings/game.  Compare to Mike Pelfrey started 64 games was 11-27, had a 4.94 ERA and averaged 5.33 innings/game.  Tyler Duffy, 29 games, 12-9, 4.90 ERA, 5.49 innings/game.  Ricky Nolasco 56 games, 15-22, 5.39 ERA and averaged 5.70 innings/game.  Based on this information, May was one of the least effect starting pitchers, despite having the highest K/9 on the staff (Berrios is tracking slightly better in K/9).  More importantly, May gave the least innings as a starter.  I think we can all agree that Nolasco and Pelfrey did not have a very successful Twins career, yet their numbers are better than Mays and they got deeper into the game (although Pelfrey just barely).

 

Exactly! Plus at the time of the move, everyone wanted to copy the blueprint of the KC Royals with 3 hard throwing, strike-em out relief pitchers at the back end of the pen. May was the only one on the roster who fit the bill.

There is a lot of history here. Back in the day, the Twins moved Aguilera into the rotation. This would have been early on in the Ryan era. Mid-90s, well after Aguilera was an established closer with two WS rings (Mets, Twins). The move did not work out and he was flipped back to bullpen as I remember it.

Which is just a way of saying we play Yo-yo with our pitchers as a matter of course!

I don't really care why they moved May to the pen. Whatever the reason, they should have move him back to the rotation for this year. His back trouble and inability to get loose in a relief role was known at the end of the 2015 season.

Your premise is a little wrong. 

Slowey was legendary in the minors before his first call-up.  He had 4 years in a starter's role with the Twins.  He had numerous spats with the front office.  If the Twins did not like him, they had a great opportunity to trade him when his stock was high.  Instead they killed his career and this event helped set it up that no pitcher wanted to come to Minnesota.  Sure, it was a mistake.

Trevor May's minor league career does not hold a candle to Slowey's.  His numbers as a starter with the Twins are nowhere close to Slowey's.  I read several scouting reports on May when the Twins acquired him and many had him pegged as a reliever or a marginal end of the rotation starter.  Twins fans were drinking the Terry Ryan kool-aid back then and I think many of us still think May is someone he isn't.

I think a better example for the Twins continued mishandling of pitching was the fact that they once had Glen Perkins as a starter, in spite of him having only two pitches.  To their credit they did not give up on him and found him the right role.  Fast forward to 2015/2016 and you have Tyler Duffey, another 2-pitch pitcher struggling in a starting role.  Duffey could be an elite set-up man or a good closer and the Twins are wasting his talents as a starter, just like what they did with Perkins.