Report from the Fort: Ober's Debut, Hernandez Rumors, & a Lineup Twist

Bailey Ober's First Start
The Twins fell to the Sox 6-1 on their first road trip of the season. The game went sideways early as Bailey Ober reached his pitch limit after getting one out in the second inning. He left the bases loaded with one run in but ended up being charged with four runs when reliever John Stankiewicz gave up a home run to Rafael Devers. 

Ober jumped up to 171 1/3 IP last year between the minors, majors, and postseason. His previous high was 108 1/3 IP and that was back in 2021. He credited his trainer and her program for the big leap.

"I feel like I followed my program a lot better," said Ober. "I worked with Jen Marcelo - she used to work with the Twins - but I work with her full time. She works with a lot of other guys too, around the league. I fully dove into her programming. And I felt like that helped me out big time from a health standpoint."

He didn't feel like he wore down physically, though he admits he did a bit mentally. Given that he started spring training knowing that he was slated for St. Paul, then was promoted, then went back to St. Paul, then was promoted, and then finally pitched in the postseason, that's probably to be expected.

Last week, he said he wasn't focusing on adding a new pitch. He was focusing on getting his big frame ready to compete.

"I feel like I'm just always trying to clean up mechanical stuff, just because I'm so big," explains Ober. "At 6'9", there's a lot of moving parts. So just making sure everything's tuned up, on time, and ready to go out there and throw and have the best velo that I can, possibly the best command. So that's always an everyday concern."

After the game, he did not seem overly concerned about the results, focusing instead on what he had been trying to do.

"I feel like I mixed pretty well," he reflected. "I feel like I could have dominated with fastballs primarily only today. But I needed to go out there and throw all my full repertoire, so I didn't do stuff that I would do during the regular season if I was trying to read at-bats. But I felt good to be back out there."

Enrique Hernandez Rumors 
Word broke yesterday that the Twins are one of the "finalists" to sign Enrique Hernandez, a 32-year-old utility player who played for Boston and the Dodgers last year.  Cody Schoenmann examined Hernandez a couple of months ago. Since Hernandez has positional flexibility and hits right-handed, he makes some sense for the Twins, which is why they certainly talked to him earlier in the offseason. The problem is that the 10-year veteran has only posted a 639 OPS over the last two seasons, and last year, he struggled even against southpaws, which would be his primary role. 

When a report lists several finalists for a player, that information likely came from the player's representative; teams don't usually know what other teams might be involved. That representative has an incentive to make a player seem like he is in demand. So take this report with a grain of salt. 

In the meantime, we're keeping an eye on right-handed hitting options who are currently on the spring training roster. 31-year-old Niko Goodrum started versus Boston today at shortstop. He's posted a career 816 OPS versus left-handers in his MLB career. Austin Martin started in left field yesterday, and the 24-year-old prospect is seen as a potential starter or utility player. Michael Helman started at third base today, and the 27-year-old posted a 902 OPS in St. Paul last year.

So the Twins have some options in camp, and they're all getting at-bats early. While we've been waiting for the Twins to sign one more right-handed hitter, we should probably pay close attention to a few of their internal options. It appears the Twins are.

Lineup Notes
The Twins lineup Sunday included three starters, all at the top of the lineup, and all of whom made their second appearance of spring training. Christian Vazquez(C) and Matt Wallner(LF) both played Friday, and Alex Kirilloff (1B) will be the first Twins player to play in back-to-back games, though Saturday he was as a DH. 

Beyond the regulars, the Twins started several of their top prospects (Brooks Lee-DH, Emmanuel Rodriguez-CF, Yunior Severino-2B, Trevor Larnach-RF) or guys who could sneak onto the roster but will likely be in St. Paul, hoping for a midseason callup (Helman-3B, Goodrum-SS).

The quality of the names are about par for a trip crosstown to JetBlue Park, but the defensive positions were odd. One would usually expect Lee at shortstop, Goodrum at second base, and Severino and Kirilloff at first base and designated hitter. Having Lee at designated hitter moved Severino and Goodrum to positions at which they are a little stretched. So what was up? Why was Lee - who is clearly being groomed for several defensive positions - starting at DH?

"Because he's playing tomorrow," Rocco explained. "So instead of playing him two days in a row, he'd get the at-bats at the DH spot today, and then we can send him on the road tomorrow.". The Twins have one of their longer road trips of the season when they travel to Tampa to play the Yankees, a 2+ hour drive. 

It's worth remembering that a lot of what we see in spring training is logistical.