These 3 Resurgent Twins Forced Their Way Right Back Into the Team's Plans

5 minutes ago, Karbo said:

After them there is the problem with AK. Will he ever turn into the hitter he was projected to be or will he even be with the club next year?

Would I be wrong to settle for him just being on the field for a hundred games in any given season?

HOPEFUL that Wood-Richardson continues to grow enough to be a guy we can trust to start in the middle of a post-season series. 

Slightly concerned that we might have a lot of guys regress to the previously established mean next year.  Hope not but hope is not a good strategy.

The thing that makes me optimistic about each of these three is that they have pushed through the areas that limited their success and have seemingly turned the corner. Sands and Woods Richardson are controlling the at bats from the mound and Larnach seems much more comfortable versus breaking balls than last year. The two pitchers are definitely trending way up and Larnach has made adjustments.

While stars drive success, every team needs players like these three to win games on a consistent basis. 

Good article.

I would add Miranda to this list. Many had written him off after the twinz wanted him to slim down which subsequently led to a terrible year last year. This year he's looking much more like his rookie self and it's fun to watch.

SWR has been a lifesaver in the rotation for us. Everyone seems to be waiting for him to fall apart but I think he's got middle of the rotation type stuff. I just hope his success doesn't keep us from acquiring a TOR starter at the deadline or in the off-season. Miranda should be on this list too. If he can stay healthy and produce like he has this year, I see an all-star game in his future. Just curious where he'll play with Lewis at third, Correa at SS and Lee at 2nd. Will they try him at 1st to keep his bat in the lineup? He's too young to be marked as a DH only....

2 hours ago, gman said:

Part of the problem with many seems to be that they are not cognizant of just how an injury is affecting their performance. Year after year with some like Buxton, Lewis, Kirilloff etc. Also some young players see long term players like Buxton and perhaps Correa now try to play through injuries and they think they need to also. Consequently for years we are not seeing just how good or bad someone truly could be.

Buxton can be streaky when healthy but you look at Lewis, Kiriloff & Correa when healthy they are the best hitters on the team when they aren't healthy they slump. There's a direct correlation. So I'm not worried about Kiriloff's ability to hit. I'm more concerned about keeping him healthy now that those structural injuries have passed. So put Kiriloff at 1B/ DH & keep him there until the soft-tissue vulnerability has passed so we can enjoy his hitting.

I never doubted SWR ability to be a MLB SP. Yet I was amazed last night at how he surpassed my expectations. SWR is constantly changing & making adjustments, it's hard for the league to catch up to him. Sands, I saw enough before to be hopeful. Larnach? I had my doubts that he'd be able to reset his approach but he did. Now I see Walner changing & being a much better fielder to boot. This gives me hope that Julien can reset his approach also. We absolutely need all our LH hitters to step up to create the line-up that strikes fear in RHPs.

3 hours ago, arby58 said:

SWR continues to perform - and against good opposition. His outing last night against the Phillies was rock solid. That's a great hitting ballclub. He handled Schwarber, Turner, and Harper to the tune of 1 for 8, three times through the lineup. The OPS for those three are .795, .911, and .960 respectively.

I'd say SWR has "graduated" to our 4th starter.  Not bad, when he was the 6th or 7th starter in spring training.

2 hours ago, ashbury said:

You mentioned Cole Sands in reference to low leverage, which immediately reminded me of USAFChief's principle that in modern bullpen usage there are no low-leverage arms.  However, I checked the numbers, and if there is a poster child for correct usage, Sands is it.

baseball-reference.com provides a "Leverage" category in its splits page (for team or for player).  By definition, a lot of innings by starting pitchers qualify as low leverage and I am not going to go into that.  But if you rank Twins pitchers by batters faced (PA) in low leverage situations, Sands is behind only Ryan/Lopez/Ober/Paddack. When the game is out of hand or safely put away, Sands is the arm Rocco prefers to go to. (Funderburk and Jay Jackson rank highly too, and now they are gone.)

With medium or high leverage, Sands drops behind Duran/Jax/Alcala in batters faced.

And the clincher for me is this: when you slice and dice the numbers for Sands, the pattern of results is stark:
Low Leverage: 127 PA, .497 OPS
Medium Leverage: 29 PA, .661 OPS
High Leverage: 30 PA, .798 OPS

Yes, this is Small Sample Size.  I would not stake a lot on this.  But the trend is consistent with Sands being used correctly.  .798 OPS is losing baseball (from the pitcher's perspective).

I am happy for Sands that he is putting together a nice season.  But I don't trust him in an important role and I would not call him a top setup man.  It seems that Rocco prefers to avoid such a role except when the bullpen is otherwise depleted.

Excellent post, I thought the article overstated Sand's contributions. His numbers look good but he has allowed many inherited runners to score, which is not reflected by the numbers. 

With that being said he has been better and is a valuable piece. I hope he keeps improving.

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

b-r.com keeps track of that for us too:
  https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2024-pitching.shtml#all_players_reliever_pitching

Will it surprise you to know that Thielbar leads the team in percentage of runners who score, at 57%?  (Majors-wide it's 33%. and no one in the Twins bullpen is below this figure except Alcala and Stewart.) 

Sands has had only 9 runners on base when he's come in, and allowed 4 to score, so that's not a good percentage but in sheer numbers it doesn't make up very much of his resume one way or the other, except to reinforce my belief that he's okay but nothing special this year; if they replaced him it would likely be with someone worse.  And he could improve.  Sure.  Why not.

Thanks for the compliment.

Interesting. That does not surprise me about Thielbar this year, but that was his specialty at his best. In the past. The Twins really miss that this year as your numbers suggest. Hopefully Alcala can keep it up and Stewart can finish out healthy. Limiting runs in the set up role takes pressure off the closers and maybe helps you avoid the Manfred Man and crushing defeats, lol 

14 hours ago, arby58 said:

SWR continues to perform - and against good opposition. His outing last night against the Phillies was rock solid. That's a great hitting ballclub. He handled Schwarber, Turner, and Harper to the tune of 1 for 8, three times through the lineup. The OPS for those three are .795, .911, and .960 respectively.

I like the kid.  A lot.  But if we trusted him to start Game 4 of a playoff series we would probably show that by being far less interested in trading for SP.

Cole Sands success has to be taken with a grain of salt.  The year-to-year inconsistency of RP is well documented.

SWR provides reason for optimism.  As a 3/4 starter long term, he could provide rotation stability that every team needs in those rotation slots.

Larnach is a an interesting case.  Has he truly finally figured it out or is he just having a nice stretch. This will be an interesting offseason for the Twins OF.  Do they attempt to roll the dice with Larnach/Wallner/Kiriloff/Martin around Buxton or do they try to bring Kepler back to provide some stability.  Larnach's rest of the season may be the biggest impact on Kepler's potential future as a Twin.

11 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Cole Sands success has to be taken with a grain of salt.  The year-to-year inconsistency of RP is well documented.

SWR provides reason for optimism.  As a 3/4 starter long term, he could provide rotation stability that every team needs in those rotation slots.

Larnach is a an interesting case.  Has he truly finally figured it out or is he just having a nice stretch. This will be an interesting offseason for the Twins OF.  Do they attempt to roll the dice with Larnach/Wallner/Kiriloff/Martin around Buxton or do they try to bring Kepler back to provide some stability.  Larnach's rest of the season may be the biggest impact on Kepler's potential future as a Twin.

Sands does need to show he can do it again next season but he looks pretty solid right now. Woods Richardson seems be getting comfortable with his pitches and his body type holds promise of sustained production.

Next year is ways off but you can be pretty certain that Max Kepler will no longer be playing for the Twins. There will be some inexperienced players brought in and a veteran signing similar to Margot. We don't need to worry about that now though. Let us all hope that Larnach goes on a two month plus terror and that Wallner hits with some consistency.

Sands lucked onto the roster due to injuries fer sure.

And Miranda could've been jettisoned after last summer. But he wasn't. Makes us hope that another opportunity will still exist for Julien or Kirilloff to shine again, but who knows.

Woods Richardson is still a youngster  and has been holding his own. That recent start agaisnt the Phillies was a gem. So he is showing that he wants to stay in he majors.