Coming Soon: Starting Pitching (But How Soon?)

Its not a choice of switching him back and forth between relieving and starting.  I'd be an innings limit thing.  Its entirely possible that with an innings limit, he only has 7 or 8 starts left this season and he would be shut down.  Would it make more sense to give him 4 or 5 more starts, then 10-15 relief appearances at the majors?  Other big time starters have gone that route (Price, Sale, Scherzer).  It wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world. 

I get the argument, I just think that it is an unnecessary risk to take with one of the few elite arms they have in the minors right now. I don't have a ton of confidence in Romero's durabilty to begin with, so having him switch to a situation where he can't do his normal warmup routine and is expected to throw as hard as he can for 20-30 pitches seems at the end of the longest season of his career makes me cringe a little bit. And if he is as good as advertised, there will be a lot of pressure to use him a lot if they are in the middle of a penant race. Obviously nothing is for sure when it comes to keeping pitchers healthy, and some limited bullpen work has worked out for other pitchers. But I just don't think the risk/reward is worth it.

Just to give readers one comparison covering this 2007-2011 period. I chose Cleveland, a team in our division, Falvey's former stomping ground, our stiffest competition at the moment, and a team I'm guessing most TD'ers suspect have a whole lot better track record than the one being "analyzed" above.

 

Over this 5-year period, the Twins sadly can "boast" of one pitcher who was drafted, signed and eventually produced a single WAR for the team so far. That guy is the enigmatic one, Kyle Gibson (4.4 WAR). He and Wimmers are the two 1st rounders during the period. Lots of "meh" here, with Tonkin, Wimmers, O'Rourke, Dean, Darnell, Achter, Wheeler. So yeah, it's ugly. We can't count guys on the above list like Thielbar (2.0), Mijares (4.2) Swarzak as an earlier draft (2.9), as Cleveland probably has some of those guys too. Hendriks essentially has zero WAR.

 

Cleveland? Two guys during that 2007-2011 5-year period have come through with better than a 1.0 WAR. Cody Allen (8.2) is almost all of it. Cleveland drafted him in the 16th round in 2010, failed to sign him, and then drafted him again in the 23rd round in 2011. The other success story for them is Cody Anderson (1.8).

 

So, once again, it's easy to draw up a list and lament about how sad the list is. But when we do more comparisons, we gain perspective.

 

I think the positive thing is that technology advancements have greatly improved the ability of evaluators to make good calls on talent, for all teams, and the poor results for both these teams aren't really much of an indictment of anyone we know in my opinion.

I appreciate that you took the time to look into Cleveland during this same time. I wanted to do this as well. However, as I started off saying in my post "out of curiosity, I looked into" it without having much time really to do so. It wasn't meant to be an analysis or even that much of a lament really. Off the couch "looking into" style research cannot reveal that much practical information. 

The part that really struck me as interesting was the amount of pitchers who never even managed to get the major leagues (or, like BJ Hermsen, never even managed to get to AAA). Finding valuable pitchers who can contribute at the major league level is one thing, but to have so few pitchers manage to rise through the system is what I find peculiar. Again, I would be "curious" to see how that compares to other teams like Cleveland.

I wouldn't be opposed to placing Romero in the bullpen so he gets 15-20 innings of MLB experience this year.  

 

What I don't want is to head into the off-season thinking there's no need to sign quality pitchers because Romero, Jorge, and Gonsalves are all coming up soon. Ideally I'd want those guys to be options #7-9 on the depth chart. If they do well and force the Twins' hand to call them up, even better. 

7-9 is probably even too high. I could see Santana, Berrios, Gibson, Legit FA, Lesser FA/Minor League Guy, Hughes, May, Mejia at least breaking camp ahead of them on the depth chart.

If they are willing to move on from Hughes as a starter, then I can see adding a FA or a SP in a trade. Even w/o him....you have:

 

Santana

Berrios

Santiago

Mejia

Gibson

May

Gonsalves

Jorge

Romero

 

Assuming you let one of Gibson/Santiago go....you think they'd let them both go?......do you think they'll go get one?

Mejia won't enter spring training penciled in as one of the 5 starters.

and I'm the opposite.

 

next year, when they don't punt the bullpen, and buxton doesn't hit -50 the first month, next year they should be legit contenders maybe.

 

Get these guys experience THIS YEAR, so they are ready next year. Otherwise, we get to not see them next year, because "you can't count on rookies", or some other nonsense.

 

As for the 25% rule, that's been shown to not be real, but teams think it is real, so they act that way. 

 

I'd put Romero in the bullpen in a month or so. I'd put Gonsalves in AAA (like, a month ago), and then have him in MN in August.

I appreciate your devotion to saying the 25% is not real and never providing anything to back it up.

Isn't this a both-and situation? The bottom three in the rotation are so bad that there will be room for Gonsalves/Jorge/Romero even if they trade for a decent starter. So they can get big-league innings. But at the same time, I think it is completely crazy to rely on any of those three to be an effective contributor in late September or in playoffs, both from a performance and workload standpoint. Going out and getting a legitimate #2-3 starter does not preclude them from giving innings to the young guys.

 

Personally, I think jerking Romero back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen is a bad idea.

Really crazy to think they can contribute this year.

I don't think putting Romero in the bullpen to end the year, partially to control innings, and then starting him in the rotation next spring is that bad of an idea. Gives him a good taste of the bigs, and then allows him to get back in the minors to work on it.

The potential problem would be starting him in the bullpen next season and then trying to move him back to the rotation mid-season.

Given that Romero, Gonsalves and Jorge have not pitched above the AA level makes any chance of a fall callup unlikely.  If they had started the year at AAA the situation would be different. 

The bigger issue is Gonsalves missed 6-7 weeks with his injury. Without that, he would already be in AAA knocking on the door. I bet they slow play him the rest of the year. His numbers back up a conservative approach at the moment, but he could push it soon with several more dominant starts in a row.

I have previously posted studies on the topic. And someone else posted their research showing there is no evidence either way.

Neither the study you posted (especially) or the other research stated anything definitive about the jumps in innings. They were about other factors.

Wouldn't the injury actually open the door to expect Gonsalves in Minnesota in September?  If he had been healthy opening day, he'd almost certainly be viewed as a candidate to be shut down at the end of the minor league season like Berrios 2015, Meyer 2014, etc.  But when he missed the first part of the season, we had to be looking ahead at a plan to keep him active through September.  So I would have probably pushed him to AAA already, so he could potentially be an option to start in August if needed like Duffey circa 2015.  If the AAA transition wasn't smooth, you could always fall back on an AFL stint to give him some more innings instead.

The injury delayed his start and put him behind physically and probably a little performance wise. And he threw 140 innings last year, that would put him on pace for 175ish this year. Skip a start or two and he easily makes it through September. So I don't really see any benefit.

I'm not sure I understand. Right now Gonsalves is on pace to have 117 innings when the minor league season ends. My point is, if you want him to get more than that, in preparation for 2018, you'd like him to work beyond the end of the minor league season this year. And given his performance and proximity, that should potentially be in MLB.

 

But, the longer they wait to promote him to AAA, the less likely they will promote him to MLB yet this season. I know, in theory they could promote him whenever and wherever they want, but we all know in practice it's not as likely with notably less AAA time (think of it as an extension of the general disinclination to promote directly from AA). And if they wait until September 1st to even consider it, they are probably more likely to push the whole thing off by saying there's not enough time left in the season to justify clearing a 40-man spot, etc.

 

So, to ensure he could be up for September, he should probably be ready for consideration to debut anytime in August. He's almost certainly already disqualified from making his MLB debut on August 5th, like Duffey did in 2015 (Duffey made his AAA debut on May 23rd that year). Given his performance, I don't think his injury should have held him back from potentially debuting in early August. (Obviously if he didn't adapt well to AAA or anything, you wouldn't have to promote him, but it would be nice if the option was more realistically -- not just theoretically -- on the table.)

I'm not sure he's ready for AAA. Too many 5-6 inning starts. I would want to see 3-4 more starts of at lesst 7 (with maybe 1 short start) before I move him to AAA.

He has nice k/bb ratios but isn't especially economic with his pitches or perhaps not able to put away AA hitters as efficiently as he needs to. With his profile, it wouldn't fly in the bigs, especially for a team trying to compete.

If the Twins fade they might give him some token starts or perhaps they get desperate enough. Otherwise probably headed to Arizona.

My point on the injury is that it probably set him back too much to make his debut this year in a normal manner. Too many innings was not going to be a problem if he was healthy, he could have made it through the season.

If Gonsalves doesn't make the majors but ends up in Arizona instead, he'll have enough innings built up to make it through September next year. That is the most important thing for him now.

Interesting. His IP/GS average since his pitch count debut this year (6 starts) is pretty much equal with Berrios' AA stint in 2015. His pitches per batter faced are a hair higher, though, which sounds like what you are getting at (3.72 for Berrios, 3.94 for Gonsalves).

 

I have to admit I don't really have a frame of reference for pitches per batter faced, but just eyeballing other AA starters, the following guys have already been promoted to AAA or MLB this season:

 

Luis Castillo (Reds) - 3.93 pitches per batter faced

Andrew Moore (Mariners) - 3.86

Brent Honeywell (Rays) - 3.86

Chance Adams (Yankees) 3.96

 

A reliever, but Burdi was at 3.90 this season before he got hurt.

 

Should Gonsalves' 3.94 really be considered a deal-breaker, just for a promotion to AAA at this point? It's already an improvement on his 4.18 mark from his AA debut last year.

Certainly not a deal breaker and it is a theory from digging into numbers rather than actual observation. Watching start to start could be telling a different story. And those are counter examples to give my theory pause (though none of them have had mlb success yet). I am thinking about Gonsalves and jis specific profile. Seems he has better command/a little lighter stuff than others cited.

Relivers are a different standard to me.

FWIW, Gonsalves threw 7 IP last night for the third consecutive start. 25 batters faced, 101 pitches.

I imagine they move him with 1-2 more starts of 7ip.

This is really nitpicking. His start tonight should be his last in AA.

Maybe nitpicking, but also important if he is going to be successful.

To be clear, I like Gonsalves, think he has a legit chance to be an effective 3/4 starter for multiple years, likely by early next year. But with his profile, he should efficiently carve up AA basically every start. I would say he's about there, but I am supportive of a little conservatism here, especially because I'm skeptical he has much to add this season.