Out of Patience: Emmanuel Rodriguez's Lack of Remaining Options Is a Problem

10 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

If he's really bad, you DFA him and he passes through waivers or you move on if somebody claims him. He wasn't good enough to make the roster for 8 years in the system at that point. I'm not too concerned.

I would just add that, that is what all of us on this board pretty much said about Rooker who needed more time and eventually ended up an All Star. He  was much older than E-Rod, but giving up early can have consequences.

14 minutes ago, Road trip said:

Performance?

Emma - .899 OPS
Ross - .856
Mendez - .820
GG - .725

And Emma is by far the fastest and a better outfielder than GG or Mendez.  Honestly those last two shouldn't even be in the discussion for 2026.  They are barely handling AAA.

Jenkins is a special case.  Bring him when deemed ready, be that today or in 2027.

Ahh, dig deeper my friend. Emma has all of 144 plate appearances this year. He was out for 100 days and just came back literally yesterday. Do you really think he could help an MLB team now? I gotta think he needs at least 2-3 weeks at AAA to regain his timing before he would have a shot at success in the Bigs. 

But let's assume though that he's not rusty and could hit the ground running. Let's actually look at where that OPS comes from. It's not from a high SLG rate (his is good but not outstanding) or a high BA (his is pretty mediocre at best) it to comes from a high OBP based on a very high BB rate, between 20-21% in 2026 and 2025, 24% plus in 2024. A BB rate that high is unheard of at the MLB level. His could easily drop in half or more and there goes his OPS. Moreover, his SO rate is astronomical. This year Emma has 43 SOs in 144 plate appearances - a 37.% strikeout rate! His SO rate in 2025 was 32.3%, 30% in 2024. All bad numbers with a bad trend. The general rule of thumb based on historical data is that a player's SO rate goes up 5% in his first MLB year, walk rate down 2%-5%, BA down 12-15%, SLG down 15-20%. So if the trends apply, we should expect Emma to run a 35% to 40% plus SO rate when he first comes up (unplayable, see Wallner), with a 12-15% BB rate at best (good), and hit somewhere around .215-.230 with a .375-.400 or so SLG. Generally speaking, that would equate to a .625 – .675 OPS. That's a guy whose primary value is to walk with occasional power. Not pretty. Hard or see who he would replace other than Roden and Buxton or Jenkins replaces Roden. And that's after he ramps back up, likely much worse now after a 100 day layoff.  

Despite what I just laid out I'm not a huge believer in the predictive power of analytical data. But here, it's just hard to see Emma helping his team this year based on his past performance. He really needs to come up in a lower pressure environment and get 500 plate appearances before he can add a lot of  value. I just don't see a reason to bring him up now in a stretch run while we are trying to qualify for the playoffs. His history does not suggest we will catch lightning in a bottle. Much better to bring him up in September if we've completely fallen out of the race to see where he is, or bring him north next spring and slowly feed him into the lineup.

I'm with you on Jenkins. I don't really care what the numbers say. He has the chance to be special. He is the one guy where we actually might catch lightning in a bottle and help ourselves this year. The rest of those guys wait until next year unless there's an injury and we need an emergency callup. I'll grant you that Emma may come up before GG, but I just don't see him coming up before Jenkins, Ross, or Mendez if that emergency occurs given he's been out most of the season.

19 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

"Not enough room," is a tough sell if you're carrying both Roden and Martin in the OF. 

It's really a Martin issue. Roden is gone when Buxton is ready to play, probably this weekend, and he should be. He's had over 50 ABs this year, 188 over the last two and he hasn't hit.

Martin is a tougher call. He's hitting .258/.409/.400 (.809) this year against lefties, .346/.404/.481 (.889) against lefties last year. He can at least do that pretty well. That's where the regular playing time is because we aren't sitting Buxton or Keaschall more than once a week since Keaschall has been our best hitter since July 1 by far. Larnach has been great against RH pitching although he is slumping now pretty badly. Can Jenkins be better? Sure, maybe, but his .279/.355/.397 (.792) mark in AAA against lefties doesn't inspire a lot of confidence for a platoon role when you figure that on average in the first year jump to the Bigs, players lose 12-15% off their AAA BA, and 15-20% off their SLG, while their SO rate climbs 5% and their BB rate drops 5%. Hard to see a path to more than 2-3 starts a week with the current roster even if he comes up to replace Martin. 

Love me some Jenkins and I think he could be a very special player. Having said that, I think it will take an injury to get him up here with real playing time unless Buxton can't go. Maybe it's worth sending Martin back to AAA or more likely waiving Jackson to give Jenkins that 2-3 games a week to see if we catch lightning in a bottle. Hard to see it though.  

1 hour ago, Dman said:

I would just add that, that is what all of us on this board pretty much said about Rooker who needed more time and eventually ended up an All Star. He  was much older than E-Rod, but giving up early can have consequences.

Rooker was holding his own with good expected metrics when the Twins gave up on him. He wasn't "bad" so I'm not exactly sure how to look at that.

Rooker was given a very, very short leash in April, 2021. His demotion came after 8 games, and he was recalled on 7/23/21. After the recall, Rooker was .219/.317/.425 wRC+ 106, wOBA .324, xwOBA .361 over 183 PA. That's the last Rooker ever saw action in Minnesota. Falvey bailed on Rooker in favor of Kyle Garlick. It was asinine IMHO. If the Twins front office continues to toss players who are raking by expected metrics, the Twins are going nowhere regardless.

10 minutes ago, Patzky said:

If you really want Jackson around this year in case another catcher.gets hurt, you should play him to prevent the other catchers from getting hurt.

See how silly..?

I agree but I do see the logic. It's not about this year, it's about next year. Jackson has been pretty good this year in a limited sample size. Good defense and he's hit. Jackson is the 2027 backup or platoon catcher in the likely event that Jeffers isn't back. He has another year of arbitration left and will be a less than $2 million guy so if we put him on waivers and he's claimed (very likely), the claiming team has him next year. He won't be available for us to re-sign. That puts us back in the very grim FA market for backup/platoon catchers since we have nobody in the minors that is ready to make the jump. I get why they want to have him around for 2027. The price of doing that is to keep him on the roster in 2026.

Still, part of me really wants them to call up Jenkins to see if can catch lightning in a bottle for the stretch run. Really, the only way to do that is to either send Martin back to AAA or waive Jackson. Martin has one option left and I suspect they want to keep that for next year, plus he has an OPS of over .800 against lefties this year with a .400 OBP and had a .893 OPS against lefties last year with over .400 OBP. That has value and he serviceable in the OF. That just leaves waiving Jackson. My guess is that Jenkins stays at AAA until there's an injury, especially since he's not exactly tearing it up there. I also guess there will be an injury and he will get a shot at some point this year.

This is a problem of the Twins own making. Always was Emma's final option year, and he should have broken camp with the Twins in place of the terrible James Outman. Instead they send him down, he gets hurt (stupidly), and he's coming back late in the year. I like Roden's future, but it seems a pretty easy move to send down a .192 hitter, and call up someone you MUST know more about and NOW; a player who needs some MLB time before you need to make big decisions about him. (Even if Rodriguez is a trade option, you'd want to pump up the tires a little before selling him.) FYI, Jenkins has been fine but. not great, and is not running low on options, so calling him up should be a case of team need (and a need that runs lower than getting Emma some big league time).

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

The roster was so full of average infielders that we got 141 combined starts from Ryan Kreidler and Tristan Gray.

Massey has played zero games at SS as a professional.  Kreidler/Gray's usage on the Twins this season has nothing to do with him.

1 minute ago, KirbyDome89 said:

I'm fine with Roden going away at this point, but is Buxton starting in CF 5-6 times per week? I doubt it. If you don't have Jenkins or Rodriguez on the roster, that means you're starting Martin or Kreidler and one or both have to face RHP. 

I would've waived Jackson yesterday. This team just can't seem to get out of their own way with roster mismanagement. Alex Jackson is now such a prized commodity that the Twins need to burn a roster spot to stash him? Insanity...but end rant. 

Jenkins is already a better defender than Martin, and you don't have to wait until a LHP takes the mound to *maybe* spot start him. Also, this team isn't exactly tearing it up offensively right now. The notion that there isn't room, or PAs, for somebody like Walker Jenkins doesn't vibe with me. 

While I might make a different decision since I'm a fan and not a front office guy, I think the decision to keep Jackson on the roster at the likely expense of calling up Jenkins is defensible. Jackson's roster spot depends a little bit about how you prioritize this year versus next year. If we waive him, he's gone and another team will use his arbitration year next year so he's gone for 2026 and for 2027. I suspect the thinking is that we will need him in 2027 two pair with Caratini when Jeffers is gone and he's better than anything we have in the minors or likely to be available on the free agent market, particularly at is likely less than $2 million a year price.

So the key question is what's more important, adding a bat Jenkins who could but might not help us more than Jackson for the stretch run in 2026 or having Jackson available in 2027 to be a platoon/backup catcher? Seems to be that depends on whether you think were going to be more of a "contender" in 2027 then we are this year. It seems more likely than not that we will be more of a contender next year when all of the currently injured pitching is assumedly available, particularly Lopez, but who knows. They could all get hurt again. I think the Twins thinking is that the team will be better next year with Lopez and the other injured pitchers back and they're prioritizing having experienced decent quality catching next year over the contribution they think Jenkins can bring for the rest of 2026. I might not make the same decision but I think it's defensible.