What Did Michael Tonkin Ever Do to You?

I like Tonkin, and wouldn't mind seeing him back at all. I just don't want to see the Twins walk down last year's trail locking up fringey bullpen arms early (when exactly nobody else is clamoring to sign them). Keep lines open with Tonkin, but focus on need, which for me is a healthy, innings-eating SP3/4.

I still think if we'd signed Lorenzen last spring, we win the division, but we couldn't afford his paltry $4.5 million salary, because we wasted it on clowns like Jackson, Staumont, and Margot. Our current rotation is Lopez, Ober, Ryan (a guy coming off a major shoulder injury), Paddack (a guy coming off 5 years of major elbow injuries), SWR (who was great but wore down big time), Festa (a kid with a handful of MLB starts), Zebby (a kid who looked in-over-his-head), and Varland (who has guts, but has yet to show he is an MLB SP). I'd love another MLB-level arm to push the line down, the same way Ober was forced to start in St Paul in '23 (aka the year we won the division and a playoff series).

50 minutes ago, Hrbeks Divot said:

Start the conversation with a minor league offer and ST invite. If the plan is to sign three guys the caliber of last year to fill the bullpen he’s worth a major league deal at $1.5-$2.0.

He's going to get an MLB offer for at least his arb value.

In my offseason plan, published before the "You're the GM" series came out, I tendered Tonkin. In fact, I definitely take him over Topa, who is another injury plagued possible one year wonder.

Tonkin is a solid, durable innings eater who is cheap. When you've got Alcala, Moran, Stewart and Canterino on the roster, a durable middle innings bullpen arm is valuable. Teams have trusted Tonkin to pitch 160 innings of relief the past 2 years with a majority of his deployments being over 1.0 innings. When you've got Rocco "Quick Hook" aka "Broken Macro" Baldelli in the dugout, a reliever who is actually good at walking to the bump more than once per game is true asset.

3 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

You undermine your own arguments pretty significantly when you take gratuitous shots at Rocco for a) executing a strategy that everyone in baseball is following, and b) Rocco showed quite clearly that given a starting staff capable of going deeper in games he let them go deeper in games.

The "spreadsheet" attacks on the manager are tired and lame, and certainly don't sell me on offering arbitration or a raise to Michael Tonkin, who is very very average. he had a career best stretch with the Yankees...who waived him in August. 

Someone will give him a chance, and I'm even ok with it being the Twins, but there's a dozen guys like him every year looking for work on cut down day. So spending $1.5M on him doesn't exactly make my sock roll up and down.

I mean, Happy Birthday Michael Tonkin! You seem like a marginal middle reliever with minimal upside, but seems ok if you've really figured out a way to get the occasional LH hitter out consistently.

Let me make this absolutely clear. I don't agree with the front office's general strategies, and the front office further distanced themselves from Rocco Baldelli's decision making in the past in regard to the TTO concerns. I believe their combined general strategies are often founded in incomplete data or thoughts; they lean well too far into an unchallenged hypothesis and not enough into a theory. If you believe Rocco Baldelli's methodology doesn't create an increased need for a multi-inning reliever, that's your opinion and you have a right to it.

Also, I'm not making a pitch to sell Tonkin to you since you (or I) have absolutely no influence on the Twins' front office decision makers.

4 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The people who think Baldelli has a quick hook ignore that last season and the season before he was operating more on pitch count than innings. If it looked like the pitcher was going to go over 100, he didn’t get to start the next inning.. somebody with the knowledge and desire to sort through the records can tell me if I am wrong or not  the people who complain about the quick hook, in my opinion, just do not pay attention to details

Yep. There was that one time when he had 2 Cy Young candidates and the healthiest rotation in baseball.

38 minutes ago, old nurse said:

So much for you putting me on your ignore list. One, I said last 2 years, 2 There were more than just the 2 pitchers chasing a Cy Young in 23. Prove me wrong or be quiet 

You're still on my ignore list, but I can manually choose to expand ignored content, just as a reference for anybody wondering how the "ignore" function actually works. You'll see the following text with a drop down on "Options" allowing you to see/respond/etc.

Quote

You've chosen to ignore content by old nurse. Options

I mostly browse TD while not logged in so I actually see quite a few ignored posts, even from people I've ignored. Every once in a while, I respond.

Btw, can't prove an opinion to somebody who doesn't want to listen in the first place.

5 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Yep. There was that one time when he had 2 Cy Young candidates and the healthiest rotation in baseball.

So you’re saying that it would be a good idea to have pitchers pitch more innings if they are less good or less healthy.  If anything these two years prove that given appropriate talent, Rocco Baldelli will let them pitch longer, and I think that’s what we actually want.  

What did he ever do to me? Well, he disappointed me by failing to live up to the hype of being a legitimately good reliever in 2013-17. So yeah, I guess I do have some beef with Tonkin!

😉