Twins Select Tyler Jay Sixth Overall

That's the part that gets me. One college coach off his rock? Sure. But, all of them? I mean we'll see how the rest of the draft goes but with last year's harvest of college relievers and now Jay, it seems increasingly likely that the Twins feel there is a widespread inefficiency across college ball where coaches are miscasting starter talents.

What would be the explanations for this?

I think someone else referenced this upthread, but apparently the Illinois coach wanted to use Jay more frequently, which is why he was in the bullpen.  His team did have a few pretty good starters, and Jay pitched almost as many innings this year as their 3-4 starters.

That said, he was pretty clearly the best pitcher on the team, especially in their previous season.

Does anybody have a list of successful college reliever to MLB starter conversions?  Honest question, I just don't know.

Side note: in regard to why Jay was only used as an occassional starter, or stretched out reliever in some cases, and not a full time starter:

Illinois was a top 10 ranked team who won the Big 10 and won 50 games on the season.

The team had 4 primary starters in their rotation that went a combined 33-7! The ERA's of those 4 was 1.75, 2.01, 2.28 and 3.35!

They all started 12 or more games, and pitched 75 or more innings.

The absolute worst SO/BB ratio amongst the 4 was better than 3-1.

The worst BA against was in the .250's and the other three were under .250.

And only one SP allowed as many hits as IP.

Jay was an anchor for the team, and used in slightly different roles at times. But he wasn't in the bullpen because he lacked something. He played his role.

One of the Illinois starters only had a 2.4 K/BB ratio this past season (although he also pitched 5 games in relief).  That same starter also led the team in unearned runs allowed, which would have raised his ERA by more than a full run -- and he lost the semifinal game knocking them out of the conference tournament (after being the #1 seed) by allowing 5 unearned runs (a game Tyler Jay mopped up in).  Another starter gave up 7 runs in 4 innings to lose their super-regional opener, before they turned to Tyler to start the next game facing elimination (where he lost, giving up 10 hits and 4 runs in 6.1 innings).

Looks like a team that could have benefitted from developing and deploying another SP ace, if they had one available.

And why was Jay relegated to the bullpen the previous season?  Looks like that team gave 16 starts to league average or worse pitchers, finished in 3rd place, and lost in the 2nd round of the Big Ten tournament, thanks to a blowup by other relievers in the 8th inning.  Again, not a result that looks particularly smart if they kept one of the best pitchers in the nation in reserve.

Is that a widespread practice? Also, fewer games > more rest > more starts/innings from your best pitcher, no? Eg. Jay had 28 relief appearances totalling ~58 innings. Whereas his teammates were starting 15-16 games and 100 innings plus. Seems like a bad tradeoff.

I see the other side of it too -- having a relief ace available every game is a nice weapon, but in practical terms it's unlikely to work out that well.  A starter is always a factor -- a reliever may or may not be, due to circumstances entirely out of his control.

In the conference tournament this year, which Illinois entered as the #1 seed, they went 2-2 and lost in the semifinals, with Jay making only 2 appearances in 4 games -- a 1 inning, 1 run save, and the last 1.1 innings of the final game (a 2-run loss).

In the regional tournament, Jay appeared only once and it was impressive (4 shutout innings) but it ultimately wasn't critical as they swept their double-elimination bracket in 3 games.

In the super regional, they lost 13-0 in the opener to face elimination.  Then, in the elimination game, they asked Jay to make only his second career start (his first being a non conference tune-up on Feb. 15), and asked him to pitch a career high 6.1 innings.  And he lost it by giving up 5 hits and the 2 go-ahead runs in the 6th and 7th inning, before departing with 1 out and 2 runners on in the 7th.

It doesn't look like the greatest management of resources.

We know that Fulmer and Tate were put in the pen too (before this year).

Fulmer was a reliever as a freshman, and transitioned to starting as a sophomore.  Full-time starter as a junior.

Tate barely pitched as a freshman (3 innings), was a reliever as a sophomore, and a full-time starter as a junior.

Neither of those paths seems unusual.  Kyle Gibson basically did that too.

I too would be interested if anyone (other than Duffey) has successfully followed the proposed Jay path.