Falvey Playing Numbers Game With Pitching Staff

Basically they were started with nothing and a bunch or promises. But two starters went down (May and Hughes) and happily there were enough AAAA bodies to start the season and more pickups to keep things running fairly smooth. Think of poor Rochester which has had 40+ pitchers thru their mound.

It was a season in which you hoped some promising guys would make the rotation at some time during the season (Gonsalves and Stewart, for example). Neither have, and it looks iffy as any of the prime prospects would break camp next season.

Same with the bullpen, which by this time should've had names like Burdi, Reed, Melotakis, Chargois, Jones, Bard holding fort. Instead we have Busenitz and Hildenburger with Rogers and Duffey and pray for a complete game. That the Twins have survived this far into the season without a dominant closer (Kintzler is still a set-up man in my opinion) is beyond words. And no closer on the horizon.

And all those fabled names? Most will be lucky to work into the picture sometime next season, if they ever do pan out (Reed being the closest, Chargois we don't know where he is -- hanging out with Zach Jones, perhaps - and maybe some names like Curtiss jumping ahead of the pack.

They may have spent a tad too much time with some folk (Haley) and the 40-man thing is a constant mess, because once you pass them off, you may not see them again (Wheeler, Wilk -- not that they are missed). 

Seriously, at Twinsfest we thought we had Santana, Gibson, Hughes, Mejia and May and Berrios fighting it out. We knew Kinzler could close, but Perkins would be back sooner rather than much later. We hoped Duffey and Rogers would give us innings. Haley would be the true long man. Chargois and Pressly would throw heat and be closers in waiting. Tonkin was a distant backup. And Breslow and Belisle were the old men to turn to if someone couldn't open the season. All that looked pretty darn appetizing, compared to what the pitching buffet has served up so far.

I think the plan was to really get work out of May, have Hughes come back, Perkins make a statement, and any number of prospects would be pushing on the door handle wanting "in" by July, if not August.

The thing is, the team is still as unsure about 2018 now as it is 2017. Any arms from the old regime going to finally come swinging thru the doors and dominate...I say lucky if they get more of a looksee (Jorge, Rosario, Romero for example) next year and lots of ray of sunshine come 2019. But what to do before then. Long-term some guys, or patchwork a staff again by asking Colon to return and hitting the waiver wire for guys hungry for another opportunity in The Show?

I don't know what more you want from Hildenberger. He's been exceptional. Busenitz has been pretty good too from what I've seen. How many of the young relievers you cited are hurt?

You are a little off base on the bullpen. Rodgers has been adequate in the set up role. Hildenberger has earned the trust to be the other setup man to go along with Rodgers. Good enough that trading Kintzler was not going to cripple the team.  It looks like  Molitor is trying to  get Busenitz i skilled enough for that role.   Watch to see how Curtis is used. Big lead, first man out of the pen  when losing they might have some confidence in his ability. 

it seems Busenitz has some ability and promise. He might have a little less control than some would like, but he seems to have a very live arm.

This year was setting up for a complete bullpen makeover of young power arms.  I am not going to complain that we are in contention and can't just roll with the young guys.  The injuries really suck.  However, I still think the bullpen is going to be a real strength by the end of next year.  Hildy looks like a fixture in the pen for several years.  Rodgers has been quite good with the exception of a couple weeks where he just was not effective but he seems to have what it takes to be part of our BP for several years.

We just need a couple of the numerous other prospects to step up the remainder of this year and the first half of next year.  The only place where we might be short is LH relievers but that's generally the case.  Maybe Turly could be good in that role and we do have a handful of other LH relief prospects.  It will be interesting to see what the BP looks like at the end of next year. 

I am glad they are finding a way to give the Slegers of our organization a chance.  He looked like he has the potential to be part of the solution.  It would be a huge boost if one of these guys step up.  I have enjoyed watching Colon but he is a very short-term boost.  One of these AAAA guys outperforming their projection would really help 2018 and beyond.  I would like to see them cut Colon and give those starts to someone who will be here next year.

The previous regime had a tendency to stubbornly adhere to a non-working plan, and showed little imagination when it came to searching for solutions, 

I read this as 'non-walking plan,' which I think works too..... 

I think looking back at past Front office i think were way to hard  on  them. I think there major weakness was they had poor results drafting pitchers. I look at there  signing of relief pitchers they had some fairly good success with signing of Kintzler, Rogers, and couple of other low cost signing relief pitchers. If Detroit would have had equal success they would have won couple of world series. There trading for pitchers was 50/50 they had some success with Mjeha and Mays but missed on big piece in myer. Free agent signings they had success with Hughes  but extending him has been bust, Santanna has been a good signing , Nolasco   was a bust but this was pushed my management and ownership. This front office has done very little to be judged on what they have done is little more than parade bunch of pitchers through hoping one will stick but looking at results I have not seen anything that has come close yet. The best so far is Colon but this is no long term solution for the Twins and they did have Garcia which would have been upgrade to what they have been running out there but they waved white flag way too soon. This Front office will be judged on this off season by fans on what ever moves they make to improve pitching. I believe many fans will find out they are going to keep number of pitchers they have right now because pitching is hard to find and teams are unwilling to let go of young pitching prospects unless your willing to give up a lot of talent to acquire these prospects so far this FO has shown there reluctance to do this. I believe for Twins improve there pitching they will be signing at least one starter and one relief pitcher on free agent market this coming year. I wouldn't be surprised if they sign a couple of starters. Also I believe they will be keeping Gibson and wouldn't be surprised if they keep Santiago too. If they do not they will have traded away some of position players for pitchers. The Twins help from farm system is at least year to two years away before it makes impact on pitching for the Twins. Look at how long it has taken to get Berios to where he is at now. The problem is that the Twins have on field team that is ready to win now so they need immediate pitching help now. If This FO fails to do this we will be looking at another rebuild and I wouldn't be surprised on another FO either. The grace period is over for this FO and I believe they made fatal error this year in that they didn't know they were this close to having winning team and could have made couple additions in off season plus not waving white flag so quick they could have made run in the playoffs. Even with this the team could still pull off run in the playoffs. I Think there problem has been where they came from. Falvey Thought Cleveland was just superior to the Twins but this was based on last year but not how were the teams this year. Same thing with Levine he came from Texas where they were much better last year than the Twins so he had same impression. This years Twins were destine to be much better with development of young players and FO that had cut loose of Plouffe which previous FO had put to much value in because he had been number one draft pick. This move alone improved the Twins defense to where the pitching staff showed improvement this year but it was all about one move. With this move Sano to third the Twins outfield is one of the top outfields in MLB, Sano has improved defense at third base plus his offense has improved, The young outfield is now starting to hit on consistent basis with development of these young players. Infield has improved over last year and  overall is hitting much better this year. But getting back to pitching The Twins will need to acquire some immediate pitching help for next year and year after before we see how this next wave of pitchers coming develop because we have seen just about everything they have in upper levels of twins minor leagues this year.   

I don't see nearly the contrast in approach that Nick sees. The Ryan regime also threw a lot of arms from a lot of sources out on the field. They had their slow-cooked draft-and-develop guys, but they too sourced rule 5, the independent leagues, junkpile, major and minor league trades. Look at the 2016 staff- Abad, Kintzler, O'Rourke, Graham, Light, Mejia...
I don't see the current leadership doing anything new or different other then the fact they seem even quicker with the trigger. This means we've again seen a lot of arms attached to unfamiliar names, but might not see them long enough to recognize who belongs. With this constant carousel, players will frequently be made available to other organizations. As a fan, I have to hope they evaluate well and hold the right guys in the shuffle. We'll see about that.

Yeah, I think Falvey has simply asked the pro scouts to stay on the lookout longer than usual during the course of this season. It's essentially the same pro scout staff feeding the GM with possibilities, maybe just a few more of them with the trigger pulled more often. I don't see any magic here.

Yeah, I think Falvey has simply asked the pro scouts to stay on the lookout longer than usual during the course of this season. It's essentially the same pro scout staff feeding the GM with possibilities, maybe just a few more of them with the trigger pulled more often. I don't see any magic here.

The magic isn't in the method, but the results. Wild card in August as opposed to on the way to 100 losses. Maybe the current regime has better data on our scrap heap finds than TR ever had, or knew what to do with. Just a guess.

I give them an A for effort, an A+ for trying different things and an A+++ for willingness to move on from failed decisions and recognizng when things just aren't working.

They apparently have a blind spot when it concerns Kyle Gibson.

Dumpster diving for cheap lightening in a bottle miracles is not really a pitching strategy. But if we find an occasional gem, it makes them seem wise and encourages them to do more dumpster diving. Garcia, Milone and the like won't win you titles. We need to aspire beyond getting the occasional not lousy end of rotation guys. Teams that go deep into the playoffs have better pitching staffs. But the difference is they have dominant 1-2 guys and a 3 guy good enough to be Les Straker