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    Jose Berrios Flashes Something Special

    Ted Schwerzler

    By Ted Schwerzler

    In his second start of the 2017 Major League Baseball season, Jose Berrios looked like a well tested veteran for the Minnesota Twins. Not only was he taking on one of baseball's best teams in the Colorado Rockies, but he thoroughly and completely dominated them.

    Sure, there was the 11 strikeouts. Yeah, he lasted into the 8th inning, working 7.2 IP. And economical, definitely, as he needed just 106 pitches to get that work in. More than the surface numbers though, Berrios' results were punctuated by some truly exceptional moments.

    Image courtesy of © Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

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    Over the course of his outing, he got 20 swinging strikes. To put that into context, he threw 72 strikes in total. That means 28% of the pitches he threw for strikes had Rockies batters swinging right through. Truly an incredible amount, it's not all that surprising given the movement on his pitches. There was the frisbee of a curveball that he tossed to Ian Desmond. The Rockies first basemen was quoted postgame suggesting that Berrios reminded him of the late Jose Fernandez on the mound.

    It wasn't just the curveball that Berrios had working though, his fastball has some seriously incredible move. In a pitch to Raimel Tapia, that turned into a strike em' out, throw em' out double play, Berrios' fastball got more movement than anything I've seen since Ubaldo Jimenez's magical season with Colorado. The ball starts on the edge of the plate, and Tapia literally has no chance as the ball casually darts away from his bat.

    When looking at what it was that cause Rockies hitters to swing and miss, Berrios didn't discriminate. He was generating whiffs on three of his four pitches (excluding his changeup) and the curveball consistently was getting batters to chase way out of the zone.

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    That bender is something Berrios is obviously confident in as well. He threw it in a handful of different counts, and the 36 curveballs he tossed accounted for 34% of his total on the night. In fact, Berrios virtually operated with a two pitch mix. His fastball (which he does throw both a four and two seam) was used right around 50% of the time. That curve was really his only other offering, as he used his changeup on just six different occasions.

    It's been a pretty incredible two start sample size, especially considering how his first 14 career starts went. While it's unfair to assume this level of dominance as the norm going forward, we've now seen why Berrios has had such a long hype train following him through the minor leagues. He should safely settle in as a third starter for the Twins, and he has the ability and drive to push the envelope.

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    As he continues to take the ball every 5th day, the keys to focus in on will remain pitch economy as well as just how impressive the movement he gets on his pitches is. Short in stature, it is in that movement that hitters are deceived, and that will help to allow Berrios opportunity to stay ahead of opposing batters. The pitch plane isn't ever going to work in his favor, but when his ball darts the distance of the zone, even the best big leaguers are going to struggle.

    May 18, 2017 was among the best starting pitching efforts ever recorded in a Twins uniform. For an organization void of strikeouts for so long, it appears Berrios will pile them up in bunches. If he's going to continue bringing a frisbee to the ballpark, this should be a lot of fun.

    For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

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    A blogger for over a decade, passion for baseball and the Minnesota Twins runs deep. Whether at the ballpark or on the couch, I'm probably tweeting.
    Follow Ted Schwerzler on Twitter: tlschwerz

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    drjim

    drjim 7,100

  • Provisional Member

    • Posted

    Unfortunately that possibility seems to be a pretty strong point of disagreement.

     

    I get that, but the people who have the most intimate knowledge of Berrios, the coaching and development staff, are all still in place. Falvey isn't "flying blind," for lack of a better term. To me the WBC/ST thing was an easier sell than simply saying "we want him to spend more time in AAA." The roster decisions during ST suggest they knew who was making the 25 man before the games started. That isn't an indictment or endorsement of the strategy. It's hard for me to imagine that if Berrios had thrown another 10 innings to match Mejia's total for the spring the decision would have been different.

    I think merely counting innings is a mistake, there is also the time with coaches, executing a plan, all of that.

     

    A team will go into spring with a plan a, but it strikes me as unlikely they decided before camp that Mejia would get first crack if one of the starters went down. He earned the spot. If Berrios was there the whole time he could have done the same.

    KirbyDome89

    KirbyDome89 6,083

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

     

    I think merely counting innings is a mistake, there is also the time with coaches, executing a plan, all of that.

    A team will go into spring with a plan a, but it strikes me as unlikely they decided before camp that Mejia would get first crack if one of the starters went down. He earned the spot. If Berrios was there the whole time he could have done the same.

    He has had more time with those coaches than Mejia at every level of the organization . 

     

    If Mejia wasn't option A then he likely was option B. I'll give the FO the benefit of the doubt and say that decision wasn't made based on 14 innings pitched in ST. 

     

     

    Brock Beauchamp

    Brock Beauchamp 44,052

  • Site Manager

    • Posted

     

    Unfortunately that possibility seems to be a pretty strong point of disagreement. 

     

    I get that, but the people who have the most intimate knowledge of Berrios, the coaching and development staff, are all still in place. Falvey isn't "flying blind," for lack of a better term. To me the WBC/ST thing was an easier sell than simply saying "we want him to spend more time in AAA." The roster decisions during ST suggest they knew who was making the 25 man before the games started. That isn't an indictment or endorsement of the strategy. It's hard for me to imagine that if Berrios had thrown another 10 innings to match Mejia's total for the spring the decision would have been different. 

    Sure, lots of coaches had hands-on experience with Berrios but the last time they saw the guy was when he closed out that horrible 2016 season. And they didn't get a good look at him in spring so their last chance to really examine the guy was when he was terrible and obviously doing things wrong.

     

    Again, I find it hard to fault them that they took the cautious approach in that situation.

    KirbyDome89

    KirbyDome89 6,083

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

     

    Sure, lots of coaches had hands-on experience with Berrios but the last time they saw the guy was when he closed out that horrible 2016 season. And they didn't get a good look at him in spring so their last chance to really examine the guy was when he was terrible and obviously doing things wrong.

     

    Again, I find it hard to fault them that they took the cautious approach in that situation.

    I'm just not putting that much stock into a couple weeks in ST. Like I said above I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that the 5th spot didn't come down to a couple weeks and a handful of innings of exhibition baseball. Based on other decisions they made during ST I would say it didn't. 

     

    It isn't just that Berrios didn't start the year with the Twins. I disagree with him not starting the season in MN but I can at least understand it. Going to a 4 man rotation and giving Tepesch a start to keep him down was inexplicable. 

    HitInAPinch

    HitInAPinch 4,518

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

     

    Another thing we've lamented in past years is how the front office so often put guys in situations where failure was likely. Alex Meyer springs to mind and the ridiculous call-up he got two years ago (I think it was two years ago, anyway). Aaron Hicks is another example. Maybe even Buxton in the third spot this season is an example (but it was fixed so quickly that it's hard to complain too much about it).

     

    Whereas this front office gave Berrios every chance to succeed instead of fail. They let him go to the WBC because he wanted to do so. They put him in Rochester and let him dominate, something he probably needed after his disastrous rookie season. Then, just 40 days into the season, they called him back to Minnesota and he's killing it up here. Berrios looks like a different pitcher today. Maybe he would have been that pitcher that on Opening Day but given how little he pitched in March and how bad he was in 2016, I'm skeptical that would be the case.

     

    Letting a promising young prospect get his feet back under him before exposing him to MLB opposition after a disastrous rookie campaign isn't something we should be criticizing.

     

    Now, if it was July 1st and Berrios had just made his first start after tearing Rochester to pieces for three months, that's something to complain about. But Jose made his first start on May 13th.

    I don't recall much about the Hicks promotion.  But clearly remember the abomination in Houston, with both Berrios and Meyer.  Travesty, is the best word I've got. Politest, fits too     ;)

     

    And I also recall the days of and outfield of Darren Mastroiani, Logan Schaffer and Shane Robinson. The promotion of Buxton was way too early.  And WAY too needed.  Self-inflicted desperation.  

     

    On the daily players, I'm feeling very confident.  Offense and defense much better this year.  The pitching is a product still in development, and that's OK.  OK, because there is a person in charge now that knows pitcher development, with a track record.

     

    Brock Beauchamp

    Brock Beauchamp 44,052

  • Site Manager

    • Posted

     

    I'm just not putting that much stock into a couple weeks in ST. Like I said above I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that the 5th spot didn't come down to a couple weeks and a handful of innings of exhibition baseball. Based on other decisions they made during ST I would say it didn't. 

     

    It isn't just that Berrios didn't start the year with the Twins. I disagree with him not starting the season in MN but I can at least understand it. Going to a 4 man rotation and giving Tepesch a start to keep him down was inexplicable. 

    That's fair. I hope they had a good reason for the Tepesch start because from the outside, it was puzzling.

    ashbury

    ashbury 60,771

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    That's fair. I hope they had a good reason for the Tepesch start because from the outside, it was puzzling.

    My explanation is that the front office has a self-imposed discipline, and they stuck to it. Had Berrios not thrown a relative clunker on April 19 in suburban Atlanta, he might have been up sooner. Two straight high-quality AAA starts afterward must not have been their metric, but the next one was.

     

    Management always preaches "consistency", and two in a row doesn't cut it.

     

    That's my reverse-engineering solution to the puzzle. :) I always prefer to try that, than to conclude "their idots".

    Doomtints

    Doomtints 2,816

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    "Berrios was the youngest Twins pitcher with 11 strikeouts in a game since a 22-year-old Francisco Liriano did so in 2006, and he was the first Twins pitcher to reach that mark within his first 16 career games since Bert Blyleven on Aug. 4, 1970 at age 19."

     

    -- Sarah Langs, ESPN Stats & Information

     

    Some of the fears around Berrios forgot his age and the normal development cycle of any good pitcher.



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