What Does the Rotation Depth Chart Look Like After Louie Varland?

3 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Blaming the ownership for Falvey's spending habits is cruel. It's like giving a college kid $100 for groceries and stuff for the week only for them to spend $95 on a vintage mushroom lamp that looks cool in the dorm room.

I hope this is sarcasm, considering Pohlad's comments over the winter.  The Polanco trade was more of a statement on ownership than the FO.

What about Sands and Winder? They have to be rotation candidates ahead of Cory Lewis.

Mike Clevinger is going to re-sign with the White Sox on a one-year deal, according to MLB Trade Rumors. That would have been a nice additon for starting pitching depth for the Twins. It will be interesting to find out how much he is signing for. 

14 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Polanco was totally redundant, almost 15x more expensive than his replacement, and keeping him on the roster would have been beyond incompetent.  It was universally surprising to analysts Farmer remained on the Twins as well. It was 100% expected Farmer would be signed/traded or non-tendered as he's viewed as a utility infielder. Kepler was also expected to be highly likely to be traded if the Twins needed the payroll capacity, which certainly COULD have been done had the Twins moved Wallner to RF and pushed Kirilloff to LF instead of declaring Kirilloff a lost cause in the outfield.

Vazquez $10MM (Camargo)
Farmer $6MM (Severino, Martin, Castro, Miranda)
Santana $5MM (Kirilloff, Severino, Miranda) 
Desclafani $4MM (Varland, Woods-Richardson, Headrick)
Margot $4MM (Castro, Martin)
That's $29MM spent when existing 40 man options at $3.5MM could replace 100% of the expected production directly.

Management's job is to work efficiently within a budget. Falvey squandered his budget adding middling value depth for $20MM.

https://www.si.com/mlb/twins/news/joe-pohlad-says-twins-wont-splash-cash-on-big-free-agent

 

I agree with you on Polanco and I was of that frame of mind since the end of last season.  However, I don't think it makes sense to include Vazquez in this discussion.  He was needed at the time and the signing what pretty much universally supported here.  So, we are really talking about a total of $19M for depth.  That's not exactly big money.  Those players are not just depth, they are all good as short side platoon players. 

I am not sure what to think about DeSclafani.  It's just nearly so clear as people like to make it,  We don't know how he was progressing.  They mighty of thought he was a long-short or he might have been looking fully recovered.  Either way, I think we had to take him in that deal and they obviously did not have better offers for Polanco.  That said, I would have been OK rolling with the guys you listed and signed Lorenzen or similar.  My guess is the twins might have done that had thought they could get these guys on a 1 year deal.  I bet they were holding out for multi-year deals.   I would not wanted them use up budget for next year and clog up the rotation with back-end guys.  They can always pivot at the deadline if the many other question marks of this team or answered in as positive light.

9 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

It's not that depth is bad or spending $20MM on depth is bad. Lots of quality depth was a luxury this year. Those depth guys would have been replaced directly by options on the 40 man or in AAA for $760k a year.
2024 Salaries for some free agents
$2.5MM J.D. Martinez
$10MM Sonny Gray
$16MM Matt Chapman
$25MM Jordan Montgomery
$32MM Blake Snell

In terms of 2024 salary (when the salary crunch is on) the Twins brought in Carlos Santana and Manuel Margot instead of Sonny Gray and J.D. Martinez as an hypothetical example. That's where my issue lays.

Had they known Montgomery or Snell could be signed on the deal he got, they might have gone that route but you can't blame them for not anticipating what happened.  Same holds true for Martinez.  He was looking for much more.  They could have done nothing and hoped but we would have crucified them had things played out as expected.  You also can't just look at this year for Gray.  His salary is $35M in 2026 right when all of our young talent should be entering their prime.   They have a lot of pitching prospects and if none of them pan out we have bigger issues than not signing Gray.  Champman makes less than zero sense.

Cross Dobnak off that list he’s too old and not good enough. 

Have to view the current pitching depth chart in comparison to previous years, not last year. Last year was fortunate from an injury and depth standpoint. It’s not that long ago (2021) that JA Happ (19 starts @6.77 era), Matt Shoemaker (11 starts@8.06era) and Andrew Albers (4 starts@7.58era) were the #4, 5, and 6-8 starters. From that perspective, Headrick, SWR, Festa, and Dobnak are a quantum leap forward! Let’s see if the pitching development pipeline is going to finally pay off. Looks better now, I hope it is better when the dust settles. 

11 hours ago, USAFChief said:

A) we had Manny Margot at DH in a game already, yet Polanco was totally redundant??

 

(B) 100 percent? Stop it. 

 

You make this sound like a travesty but you fail to mention that the starter was a LHP and Polanco's career wRC+ against LHP is 96 and Margot's is 109.  No doubt Polanco would be the far superior choice if a RHP was on the mound but that was not the case.  

Its actually a nice list and other than Dobnak, they are young and each has huge potential. Most MLB SP have been in the same boat, young guys developing their craft, getting experience and gaining confidence. 
WHEN we need someone to step up, we have more than one guy to take the reins.  As the season goes on, the possibilities increase for more prospects to be on this list.  Cory Lewis and Raya are definitely a possible fireman type call up in the 2nd half. 
There is no reason to think that we don't have someone waiting in the weeds to be the next Ober/Varland development guy. I would like to see Headrick take it just because he is LH. Everyone of the guys on the list and more will definitely be making at least 1 start this season. We just need one of them to take a huge step. No reason to even be worried because one of them will take that step. Thats why they are getting paid. 

It looks like the Twins think Festa has the highest ceiling. But who gets the first call up will depend on where they are in the AAA rotation. SWR needs to show some progress this year. Dobnak always seemed like a long reliever, not a starter. And his $9 million contract was alway a head scratcher because he didn’t really accomplish that much IMO. It is disappointing that the wealthy ownership didn’t step up to acquire another starter free agent, given the strong young core of this team. 

On 4/1/2024 at 8:17 AM, TwinsDr2021 said:

Last year was Ober, Varland, De Leon, Dobnak, SWR, Sanchez, and they had to go get Keuchel because after Varland it really was terrible.

This year it is Dobnak, SWR, Festa and prospects, and this year at any level is better, I am not buying it.

Remember last year the starters were pretty healthy and the Twins started 43 games from depth in 22 they started around 60 from depth.

FWIW Dallas Keuchel is off the board after reportedly signing a minor league contract with the Seattle Mariners:

https://twitter.com/DKramer_/status/1775311169148031235?s=20

Keuchel could provide depth behind righthander Emerson Hancock, the Bryan Woo replacement who looked solid Monday in his first start.