Matt Braun

Thanks to pitching that has been great all year, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos were able to throw their fourth shutout of the year, this one coming with 18 strikeouts. What else went on in the land of the Twins minor league system? Follow me and I’ll take you through it.TRANSACTIONS -OF Mark Contreras tranferred from AA Pensacola to A+ Fort Myers -RHP Jacob Blank transferred from A+ Fort Myers to Rookie ball Elizabethton RED WINGS REPORT Rochester 8, Lehigh Valley 13 Box Score Chase De Jong: 2.0 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 52.1% strikes (38 of 73 pitches) HR: John Andreoli (2) Multi-hit games: John Andreoli (2-for-4, R, RBI), LaMonte Wade (2-for-5, 2 R), Luke Raley (2-for-4, R, 2 RBI), Randy César (3-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBI) Another Saturday, another day where Chase De Jong started against the IronPigs and I got to write about it. In relief of De Jong after his two innings of work, Jake Reed fired off three excellent innings with only one earned run and six strikeouts. Now it only seems like a matter of if, not when Reed shows up on the Twins sometime this season. The offense was able to put up eight runs thanks in part to a John Andreoli blast and two doubles from Randy César that buffed up his RBI totals. While the eight runs were great, it was just not quite enough to match the IronPigs offense and the Red Wings dropped the game in the end. BLUE WAHOO BITES Pensacola 5, Mobile 0 Box Score Sean Poppen: 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 11 K, 64.6% strikes (51 of 79 pitches) HR: None Multi-hit games: Jaylin Davis (2-for-3, R), Tanner English (2-for-2, 3 R, 2 RBI), Ernie De La Trinidad (3-for-4, RBI) Pensacola yet again got another great start from their starting pitcher, this time from the owner of one of my favorite names in the Twins system, Sean Poppen. Poppen was relieved after five innings by Jovani Moran who was relieved after two innings by Cody Stashak who fired off two innings of his own, with the carnage totaling 18 total strikeouts for Blue Wahoos pitching. The Blue Wahoos scraped together five assorted runs throughout the game from a myriad of singles (both of the infield and outfield variety) in support of the excellent pitching and it was enough to beat the BayBears pretty handily. MIRACLE MATTERS Ft. Myers 2, Charlotte 7 Box Score Charlie Barnes: 1 2/3 IP, 7 H, 7 ER, 5 BB, 0 K, 55.2% strikes (32 of 58 pitches) HR: None Multi-hit games: Royce Lewis (2-for-5), Lewin Diaz (2-for-4, RBI), Travis Blankenhorn (2-for-3, R, BB), Michael Helman (2-for-4) Charlie Barnes went 1 2/3 innings and surrendered seven runs with five walks against the Charlotte Stone Crabs. Tom Hackimer came in and did fine work by striking out five over 2 1/3 innings without allowing a hit or a walk. Relievers Alex Phillips and Anthony Vizcaya followed suit with a combined five innings of work that came with six punchouts and only three hits. The Miracle bullpen in total fired off 7 1/3 innings with 11 punchouts and just three hits. The two runs for the Miracle came from a fourth inning Lewin Diaz single and a ninth inning sacrifice fly from Ryan Costello. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 4, Beloit 5 Box Score Josh Winder: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 70.1% strikes (54 of 77 pitches) HR: Chris Williams (3) Multi-hit games: Andrew Bechtold (2-for-4, R) The Kernels went for the series sweep against the Beloit Snappers but came up just a bit short and had to settle for taking two of three instead. The scoring started in the bottom of the first when Chris Williams made another deposit into his charity fund that gives home run balls to lucky fans in the outfield stands, his two-run shot was his second homer in as many days. The Snappers responded by scoring the next five runs of the game with the earned runs being split between Kernels starter Josh Winder and reliever Tyler Palm. The Kernels were able to answer back in the seventh with runs coming from a Michael Davis double and a Gabriel Maciel single but the inning ended with the Kernels trailing by a run and the game would end in the same fashion. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Sean Poppen Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Randy César PROSPECT SUMMARY Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed: #1 - Royce Lewis (Ft. Myers) - 2-for-5, K #2 - Alex Kirilloff (Pensacola) - Injured list #3 - Brusdar Graterol (Pensacola) - Did not pitch #4 - Trevor Larnach (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-4, R, K #5 - Wander Javier (EST) - Season has not started #6 - Brent Rooker (Rochester) - Did not play #7 - Jhoan Duran (Ft. Myers) - Did not pitch #8 - Lewis Thorpe (Rochester) - Did not pitch #9 - Blayne Enlow (Cedar Rapids) - Did not pitch #10 - Akil Baddoo (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-5, K #11 - Nick Gordon (Rochester) - Injured list #12 - Stephen Gonsalves (Rochester) - Injured list #13 - Ryan Jeffers (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-4, 2 K #14 - Ben Rortvedt (Ft. Myers) - 0-for-3, BB #15 - Yunior Severino (Cedar Rapids) - Injured list #16 - Gilberto Celestino (Cedar Rapids) - 0-for-2, K #17 - Zack Littell (Rochester) - Did not pitch #18 - LaMonte Wade (Rochester) - 2-for-5, #19 - Jorge Alcala (Pensacola) - Did not pitch #20 - Jose Miranda (Ft. Myers) - Did not play SUNDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Mobile @ Pensacola (5:05 P.M.) - RHP Jorge Alcala (Most other leagues are off for Easter Sunday) Please feel free to ask any questions and discuss Saturday’s games. Click here to view the article

Thank you for pointing this out! Not sure how I messed that up.

Massive shout out to the Red Wings and IronPigs for having the game of the year on the day that I got to do the report, so glad that they were thinking of me.

What had seemed like a fairly normal day of baseball turned into something more thanks to one game in particular that decided to not play by the rules. Read all about it and much more in this edition of the Twins minor league report.TRANSACTIONS -OF Mark Contreras promoted from A+ Fort Myers to AA Pensacola. Jaylin Davis was placed on the Injured List. -RHP Jacob Blank promoted from rookie ball extended spring training to A+ Fort Myers RED WINGS REPORT Rochester 18, Lehigh Valley 20 (10 innings) Box Score Yes, you are reading that correctly, that is an 18 to 20 game that occurred today ... Chase De Jong: 3.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO, 63.8% strikes (46 of 72 pitches) HR: Ronald Torreyes (2), Zander Wiel 2 (2), Willin Rosario (3), Wynston Sawyer (1), Brent Rooker (3) Multi-hit games: John Andreoli (2-for-5, 2 2B), Willin Rosario (4-for-7, HR), Brent Rooker (3-for-6, HR), Wynston Sawyer (3-for-3, HR, 2 2B), Randy César (3-for-5), Zander Wiel (4-for-5, 2 HR, 2B) Truly, one only needs to take a glimpse at the box score to capture the essence of one of the more absurd baseball games to ever be played, not just including the minor leagues, but of all time. In total, the damage was a ridiculous 15 home runs combined between the two teams and 38 runs scored in 10 innings. The major league record for home runs in a game is 12 if you wanted a frame of reference. In a game where a “safe lead” would be considered outright laughable by those playing, over a full mile of home run distance was blasted out of Frontier Field. Those in a 10-mile radius of the stadium who enjoy the art of pitching keeled over left and right as homer after homer was launched in an attempt to confuse those whose job it is to observe the results and force those poor individuals to declare the box score to be broken. No pitcher who was forced into this onslaught left without scars as each pitcher gave up at least one unearned run and only the lucky Edubray Ramos was left without an earned run to his name. The “winner” of this game, Josh Martin, was touched for three runs over his two innings of work along with a blown save, a shining example of why pitching wins is a flawed stat. Red Wings starter Chase De Jong was tossed in the fourth inning along with manager Joel Skinner in what was probably an act of grace towards both individuals by the home plate umpire. Home runs by Zander Wiel and Ronald Torreyes in the bottom of the eighth inning gave the Red Wings a slim one-run lead heading into the ninth that was eliminated by a game-tying shot from Jan Hernandez. A 10th inning three-run home run by Sean Rodriguez would be the final blow needed to end the game as the Red Wings could only respond with a Willin Rosario RBI single in the bottom half of the inning. Here is video evidence of the carnage, avert your eyes pitching lovers: BLUE WAHOO BITES Pensacola 0, Jacksonville 1 Box Score Griffin Jax: 6.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 63.5% strikes (47 of 74 pitches) HR: None Multi-hit games: None Stop me if you have heard this already, but the Pensacola Blue Wahoos saw yet another strong start from one of their starting pitchers, this time from RHP Griffin Jax who threw six shutout innings. I’ll let the Blue Wahoos themselves tell you how electric their starting pitching has been so far: The Blue Wahoos offense could not do much as they scattered three hits across the nine frames along with three walks that amounted to zero runs. An eighth inning RBI single by the Jumbo Shrimp proved to be the only run in the ballgame as both squads decided to be the exact opposite of the Red Wings game earlier. MIRACLE MATTERS Ft. Myers 3, Clearwater 0 Box Score Bailey Ober: 6.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 77.7% strikes (49 of 63 pitches) HR: Ryan Jeffers (1) Multi-hit games: Aaron Whitefield (2-for-4, 2B), Lewin Diaz (2-for-4) The Fort Myers Miracle secured an away series win against the Clearwater Threshers with a clean 3-0 shutout, their third shutout of the week. RHP Bailey Ober continued to dominate hitters as he threw six efficient shutout innings to go on top of the six shutout innings he threw in his last start, giving him a predictable ERA of 0.00 on the season. After a great 2018 season at A+ for Ober and now these two strong performances, maybe it is time to consider whether he should be in the top 20 prospects list. The game was a 0-0 stalemate until the top of the sixth inning when Aaron Whitefield hit a double and Royce Lewis thought that he too would like to be on second base, so he hit a double of his own, scoring Whitefield on the play. That run would have been all the Miracle needed to win, but such a future would be too boring for Ryan Jeffers, so when he stepped up to the plate in the seventh inning with Lewin Diaz at first base, he determined that a two-run home run now would be the best time for his first homer of the year, and so he made it be as he blasted a homer, giving the Miracle a 3-0 lead that would hold until the end of the game. Here’s Marshall Kelner on just how dominant the Miracle pitching was: KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 2, Burlington 1 Box Score Josh Winder: 5.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 64.0 % strikes (57 of 89 pitches) HR: None Multi-hit games: None The Kernels and Bees felt the cosmic shift that was the Red Wings and IronPigs game and decided to off-set it with a nice, close, low-scoring game that would cleanse the pallet of pitching lovers everywhere. Even the runs that were scored were done so in an unusual way with a second inning Kernels run coming from a wild pitch that scored Michael Davis and a seventh inning throwing error that scored Trey Cabbage. While the Bees might be upset at how these runs went down, at the end of the day, a run is a run and a win is a win. The Kernels pitching trio of Josh Winder, Brian Rapp, and Joe Record combined to strike out 15 total Bees while allowing only four hits, one of the extra-base variety. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Bailey Ober Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Zander Wiel (special shoutout to the rest of the Red Wings offense) PROSPECT SUMMARY Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed: #1 - Royce Lewis (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-3, BB, RBI #2 - Alex Kirilloff (Pensacola) - Injured list #3 - Brusdar Graterol (Pensacola) - Did not pitch #4 - Trevor Larnach (Ft. Myers) - 0-for-4, 2 K #5 - Wander Javier (EST) - Season has not started #6 - Brent Rooker (Rochester) - 3-for-6, 3 R, 3 RBI, BB, 3 K #7 - Jhoan Duran (Ft. Myers) - Did not pitch #8 - Lewis Thorpe (Rochester) - Did not pitch #9 - Blayne Enlow (Cedar Rapids) - Did not pitch #10 - Akil Baddoo (Ft. Myers) - Did not play #11 - Nick Gordon (Rochester) - Injured list #12 - Stephen Gonsalves (Rochester) - Injured list #13 - Ryan Jeffers (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-4, HR, R, 2 RBI, 2 K #14 - Ben Rortvedt (Ft. Myers) - 0-for-3, BB, 2 K #15 - Yunior Severino (Cedar Rapids) - Injured list #16 - Gilberto Celestino (Cedar Rapids) - 1-for-4, K #17 - Zack Littell (Rochester) - Did not pitch #18 - LaMonte Wade (Rochester) - 0 for 3, K #19 - Jorge Alcala (Pensacola) - Did not pitch #20 - Jose Miranda (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-4, K SUNDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Lehigh Valley @ Rochester (12:00 P.M. CST) - LHP Justin Nicolino Jacksonville @ Pensacola (1:05 P.M. CST) - RHP Andro Cutura Fort Myers @ Clearwater (12:00 P.M. CST) - LHP Charlie Barnes Burlington @ Cedar Rapids (2:05 P.M. CST) - RHP Andrew Cabezas Please feel free to ask any questions and discuss Saturday’s games. Click here to view the article

First minor league report of the season for me, wonder what I did to allow Seth and Tom to trust me like this. In other news, I might need a new picture for my profile here...

It was another full slate of minor league games filled with excitement on this fine early April Saturday. Who played well? Who won? Well, hop on in and let me lead you through the matches and their results.TRANSACTIONS RHP Chase De Jong was added to the 40-man roster and selected from AAA, 1B/DH Tyler Austin was subsequently DFA’d to make room. RED WINGS REPORT Game one: Rochester 3, Lehigh Valley 12 (7 innings) Box Score Lewis Thorpe: 4.0 IP, 10 H, 9 R, 2 BB, 4 K, 60.2% strikes (50 of 83 pitches) HR: Brent Rooker (1) Multi-hit games: Wynston Sawyer (2-for-3, 2B, 1 RBI) The Red Wings were rained out yesterday on their second scheduled game of the season, which is no fun. But that means that they got to play two games today, which is fun! RHP Chase De Jong was originally set to start the first game but was called up to the major league club so LHP Lewis Thorpe received the ball to start today’s game instead. Thorpe went four innings, surrendering 10 hits and nine earned runs with two walks and four strikeouts. Thorpe ran into trouble early as he gave up home runs to both Mitch Walding and Lane Adams in the first, putting the Red Wings in a deficit early. The Red Wings answered back in the next half inning as Brent Rooker took advantage of a Luke Raley walk before him and decided that now would be the best time to hit his first Rooker Rocket of the year, a two-run blast off IronPigs starter Jerad Eickhoff that cut the lead in half. The rally stopped there as the Red Wings only added one more run in the seventh off a Wynston Sawyer double while the IronPigs piled on eight more runs along the course of the game to go on top of the four they scored in the first inning. Game Two: Rochester 1, Lehigh Valley 4 (7 innings) Box Score Austin Adams: 2.1 IP, 1 R, 0 BB, 4 K, 74.1% strikes (23 of 31 pitches) HR: Randy César Multi-hit games: None The Red Wings were put in what we like to call a “tough situation” as they needed to play a doubleheader and their original Game 1 starter, Chase De Jong, was called up by the Twins. So they were forced to move Lewis Thorpe up for Game 1 and use a bullpen game in Game 2. Austin Adams ate up innings to start and was followed by Fernando Romero and Preston Guilmet. Randy César scored the lone run for the Red Wings when he blasted a solo homer in the fifth inning off the IronPigs starter Enyel De Los Santos BLUE WAHOO BITES Pensacola 5, Mobile 0 Box Score Devin Smeltzer: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K, 74.3% strikes (61 of 82 thrown) HR: Jimmy Kerrigan (2) Multi-hit games: Taylor Grzelakowski (2 for 5), Jimmy Kerrigan (2 for 4, RBI, R), Caleb Hamilton (2 for 4, R) The Pensacola Blue Wahoos continued their hot start to the season with a 5-0 victory over the Mobile BayBears that was spearheaded by another great starting pitching performance, this time from lefty Devin Smeltzer. Pensacola took Smeltzer to the old town road and rode him until they couldn’t no more (which happened to be after 5 2/3 innings). The result was a perfect game through five for Smeltzer and 5 2/3 innings of shutout ball for him overall. The scoring was kicked off in the third inning when Jordan Gore scored on an error and was added to in the fifth when Jimmy Kerrigan launched his second blast of the year. A Brian Schales single later in the inning would add two more and a Jaylin Davis single in the seventh would score what was the final run of the game. A combination of Adam Bray and Ryan Mason would finish what Smeltzer started and would give the Blue Wahoos a solid shutout on the day. Pensacola has now had a pretty absurd start to the season for their starting pitching which can pretty much be summed up by this: MIRACLE MATTERS Ft. Myers 4, Charlotte 7 Box Score Tyler Watson: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 64.3% strikes (47 of 73 pitches) HR: Aaron Whitefield (1) Multi-hit games: None The Fort Myers Miracle concluded their first series of the season: an away three-game series against the Charlotte Stone Crabs. LHP Tyler Watson and RHP Hector Lujan were the only two pitchers used for the Miracle as Lujan picked up after Watson’s five innings with three innings of his own. The Miracle put up four hits as a team but also walked nine times in the game as Michael Helman and Ben Rortvedt both had multi-walk games. Ryan Jeffers was the only starter who did not reach base. The LOBsters ended up being too much for the Miracle as they couldn’t take advantage of all the free passes, leading to 20 men left-on-base in today’s game. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 0, Wisconsin 2 Box Score Cole Sands: 5.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K, 61.7% strikes (50 of 81 pitches) HR: None Multi-hit games: Trey Cabbage (2-4) Runs were hard to come by in the opening matchup of a quick two-game series between the Kernels and the Timber Rattlers, much of this was due to the electric performance from Kernels starter Cole Sands. The righty Sands made his professional baseball debut today after being drafted in the fifth round out of Florida State in the 2018 MLB draft. Sands evidently had no trouble adjusting to pro ball as he mowed down the Timber Rattlers with ease, retiring the first 13 batters of the game leading to a final line in which he ended up striking out eight, walking just one, and not allowing a hit through five shutout innings. The tall righty Tyler Palm relieved Sands in the sixth and gave up a single which was followed by a walk. After getting the next batter to fly out, a fielding error by third baseman Andrew Bechtold allowed the only two runs of the game to score (both of them unearned). Sands was equally matched by the Timber Rattler’s pitching as the Kernels lineup put together just four hits on the day along with one walk, all leading to no runs and a 2-0 loss. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher(s) of the Day – Cole Sands featuring Devin Smeltzer Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Jimmy Kerrigan PROSPECT SUMMARY Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed: #1 - Royce Lewis (Ft. Myers) - 0-for-4, BB, R, K #2 - Alex Kirilloff (Pensacola) - Injured list #3 - Brusdar Graterol (Pensacola) - Did not pitch #4 - Trevor Larnach (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-5, 2B, RBI, K #5 - Wander Javier (EST) - Season has not started #6 - Brent Rooker (Rochester) - 1-for-3, HR, R, 2 RBI, 2 K #7 - Jhoan Duran (Ft. Myers) - Did not pitch #8 - Lewis Thorpe (Rochester) - 4.0 IP, 10 H, 9 R, 2 BB, 4 K #9 - Blayne Enlow (Cedar Rapids) - Did not pitch #10 - Akil Baddoo (Ft. Myers) - Did not play #11 - Nick Gordon (Rochester) - Injured list #12 - Stephen Gonsalves (Rochester) - Injured list #13 - Ryan Jeffers (Ft. Myers) - 0-for-4, 2 K #14 - Ben Rortvedt (Ft. Myers) - 1-for-2, 2 BB, R, K #15 - Yunior Severino (Cedar Rapids) - 1-for-4, K #16 - Gilberto Celestino (Cedar Rapids) - Did not play #17 - Zack Littell (Rochester) - Did not pitch #18 - LaMonte Wade (Rochester) - 0-for-3, K #19 - Jorge Alcala (Pensacola) - Did not pitch #20 - Jose Miranda (Ft. Myers) - 0-for-3, BB, R SUNDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Rochester @ Lehigh Valley (12:35 P.M. CST) - RHP Zack Littell Pensacola @ Mobile (2:05 P.M. CST) - RHP Griffin Jax Dunedin @ Ft. Myers (11:30 A.M. CST) - RHP Bailey Ober Cedar Rapids @ Wisconsin (1:05 P.M. CST) - RHP Josh Winder Please feel free to ask any questions and discuss Saturday’s games. Click here to view the article

As the snow begins to melt and the shorts slowly come out of retirement, the sounds and smells of baseball lurch closer, beckoning fans across the world to watch and support their team as they grind through yet another season. But while the beginning of the season sparks hope for most teams (Orioles not included), the first month or so of the season can be somewhat unusual in how the players and teams perform thanks in part to scheduling and weather among other things.For example, take the 2018 Mets who were 13-4 at one point last year before ending at 77-85. Or the Twins last year who were forced to miss a great number of games due to the weather which not only changed their in-game strategy but also led the team into a long rut of losses from which they never recovered. Or take the shining beacon of my example, Edwin Encarnacion who owns a career .740 OPS in March/April and a career OPS of .850. The point is that early season performance is not necessarily indicative of how a player will perform over the entire season. And in the age of hot takes and short leashes in the eye of public opinion, this can lead to premature reactions that call for the DFA-ing or benching of a specific player. Generally, we know which Twins players struggle to start and which players get off to hot starts, but there are quite a few new faces on the team this year most of whom we most likely have not watched before as much as the usual Twins regulars. So what I will do in this article is look at the new members of the 2019 Twins team and compare their March/April stats to their career stats so we can find out which player(s) we should be worried about if their performance during this time period this season does not match up with their career. The Newcomers C.J. Cron-March/April OPS of .671, career OPS of .772 C.J. Cron was an interesting addition to the Twins. After being DFA’d by the Rays despite having a good 2018 season, the Twins claimed Cron with the plan for him to replace Joe Mauer as the everyday first baseman. People were generally split into two camps; those who liked the adjustments he made in 2018 and were fans of the move, and those who saw “ex-Rays first baseman” and immediately had every Logan Morrison strikeout flash through their mind. By now, cooler heads have prevailed and Cron will start the season as the first baseman. Despite having a hot spring training, do not be surprised if Cron comes out of the gate a touch sluggish. While a .671 OPS is not terrible, it is a good .100 points below his average. But the calls for Tyler Austin to replace him will be premature as he most likely will be fine eventually. Cron evens this slow start out with a career OPS over .900 in both July and August. Nelson Cruz-March/April OPS of .900, career OPS of .860 One of the few signings in recent history that basically every Twins fan liked, Cruz brings a long history of hitting the crap out of the ball along with some veteran presence to a team that needs it. The new big bopper in the Twins lineup can just plain hit and the first part of the season is no exception here. In fact, he actually hits a touch better in the first month or so of the season compared to his career numbers. His worst month comes in June but even that comes out to a .815 OPS so expect Cruz to hit well no matter what month it is and keep a helmet on if you are seated in the left field bleachers because it could get messy out there. Jonathan Schoop-March/April OPS of .732, career OPS of .738 This was one of the few signings that my dad called, he had mentioned before that he wouldn’t be shocked if the Twins signed Schoop and just a few days later the Twins listened to him and scooped him up on a 1-year deal. Schoop is one of the many bounce-back candidates on the 2019 Twins and the team would be quite happy if he regained his 2017 form that put up a 5 rWAR season and garnered MVP votes. While I cannot guarantee that will happen, I can promise that Schoop should come out the gates hitting about in line with his career. Schoop’s worst month is in September/October where he owns a career OPS of just .609. Marwin Gonzalez-March/April OPS of .712, career OPS of .737 The man of an excellent beard and many positions was signed by the Twins after camp started to continue to be a useful utility player who has the ability to play wherever and whenever. His job to start the season will be that of Miguel Sano insurance as Sano will start the season on the IL. The news of this signing broke while I was walking to my lab in which I had to take a practical that did unspeakable things to me, but in my defense, my mind was elsewhere at the time as I was giddy that the Twins signed Marwin. Despite a brutal spring training, Marwin should hit relatively close to his career totals to begin and he does not have much fluctuation as far as his numbers go on a month-to-month basis. His lowest OPS is in August at a career .692 clip and his highest is in September/October at a .811 clip. Blake Parker-March/April ERA of 4.23, career ERA of 3.29 Blake Parker has a weird place in my family. We went to a minor league game a few years back where he gave up a game-tying homer in the ninth in a brutal game that we left after 12 innings. Of course, I thought nothing of it but then just a year or two later he’s making fools look silly for the Angels and I could barely believe that it was the same guy. The lone pure reliever whom the Twins signed to a major league deal this offseason is coming off a solid spring training but could possibly stumble a touch out of the gate. However, unlike the batters before who had large sample sizes to draw data from, Parker only has 27.2 career major league innings in March and April, so take this with a grain of salt. He does follow it up with a career ERA of 1.61 in May that comes with a K/9 of 12.2. Martin Perez-March/April ERA of 4.76, career ERA of 4.63 I remember when my phone buzzed for the notification that the Twins had signed Martin Perez after which followed about 10 minutes of questioning before hopping on Twitter to see that everyone else had similar thoughts regarding the signing. Most of them could be summarized by one word; “why?”. Perez had a horrendous 2018 and it seemed like a strange signing given the other starting pitching available. After the months went by, the Twins reasoning slowly seeped out: They thought that they could squeeze some extra velocity out of him and change his pitch usage a bit to become a deadly weapon in the rotation. His spring training numbers as the new Martin Perez were a mixed bag, but his velocity certainly was up as he mainly sat about 95 and would occasionally touch 97. Whether this translates to the regular season will be seen soon enough, but if he’s anything like the old Martin Perez, it could take him a little bit before he gets going. Click here to view the article

As the snow begins to melt and the shorts slowly come out of retirement, the sounds and smells of baseball lurch closer, beckoning fans across the world to watch and support their team as they grind through yet another season. But while the beginning of the season sparks hope for most teams (Orioles not included), the first month or so of the season can be somewhat unusual in how the players and teams perform thanks in part to scheduling and weather among other things. For example, take the 2018 Mets who were 13-4 at one point last year before ending at 77-85. Or the Twins last year who were forced to miss a great number of games due to the weather which not only changed their in-game strategy but also led the team into a long rut of losses of which they never recovered. Or take the shining beacon of my example, Edwin Encarnacion who owns a career .740 OPS in March/April and a career OPS of .850. The point is that early season performance is not necessarily indicative of how a player will perform over the entire season and in the age of hot takes and short leashes in the eye of public opinion, this can lead to premature reactions that call for the DFA-ing or benching of a specific player. Generally, we know which Twins players struggle to start and which players get off to hot starts, but there are quite a few new faces on the team this year of which we most likely have not watched before as much as the usual Twins regulars. So what I will do in this article is look at the new members of the 2019 Twins team and compare their March/April stats to their career stats so we can find out which player(s) we should be worried about if their performance during this time period this season does not match up with their career. The Newcomers C.J. Cron-March/April OPS of .671, career OPS of .772 C.J. Cron was an interesting addition to the Twins. After being DFA’d by the Rays despite having a good 2018 season, the Twins claimed Cron with the plan for him to replace Joe Mauer as the everyday 1st baseman. People were generally split into two camps; those who liked the adjustments he made in 2018 and were fans of the move, and those who saw “ex-Rays 1st baseman” and immediately had every Logan Morrison strikeout flash through their mind. By now, cooler heads have prevailed and Cron will start the season as the 1st baseman. Despite having a hot spring training, do not be surprised if Cron comes out of the gate a touch sluggish. While a .671 OPS is not terrible, it is a good .100 points below his average. But the calls for Tyler Austin to replace him will be premature as he most likely will be fine eventually. Cron evens this slow start out with a career OPS over .900 in both July and August. Nelson Cruz-March/April OPS of .900, career OPS of .860 One of the few signings in recent history that basically every Twins fan liked, Cruz brings a long history of hitting the crap out of the ball along with some veteran presence to a team that needs it. The new big bopper in the Twins lineup can just plain hit and the first part of the season is no exception here. In fact, he actually hits a touch better in the first month or so of the season compared to his career numbers. His worst month comes in June but even that comes out to a .815 OPS so expect Cruz to hit well no matter what month it is and keep a helmet on if you are seated in the left field bleachers because it could get messy out there. Jonathan Schoop-March/April OPS of .732, career OPS of .738 This was one of the few signings that my dad called, he had mentioned before that he wouldn’t be shocked if the Twins signed Schoop and just a few days later the Twins listened to him and scooped him up on a 1-year deal. Schoop is one of the many bounceback candidates on the 2019 Twins and the team would be quite happy if he regained his 2017 form that put up a 5 rWAR season and garnered MVP votes. While I cannot guarantee that will happen, I can promise that Schoop should come out the gates hitting about in line with his career. Schoop’s worst month is in September/October where he owns a career OPS of just .609. Marwin Gonzalez-March/April OPS of .712, career OPS of .737 The man of an excellent beard and many positions was signed by the Twins after camp started to continue to be a useful utility player who has the ability to play wherever and whenever and his job to start the season will be that of Miguel Sano insurance as Sano will start the season on the IL. The news of this signing broke while I was walking to my lab in which I had to take a practical that did unspeakable things to me, but in my defense, my mind was elsewhere at the time as I was giddy that the Twins signed Marwin. Despite a brutal spring training, Marwin should hit relatively close to his career totals to begin and he does not have much fluctuation as far as his numbers go on a month-to-month basis. His lowest OPS is in August at a career .692 clip and his highest is in September/October at a .811 clip. Blake Parker-March/April ERA of 4.23, career ERA of 3.29 Blake Parker has a weird place in my family, we went to a minor league game a few years back where he gave up a game-tying homer in the 9th in a brutal game that we left after 12 innings. Of course, I thought nothing of it but then just a year or two later he’s making fools look silly for the Angels and I could barely believe that it was the same guy. The lone pure reliever who the Twins signed to a major league deal this offseason is coming off a solid spring training but could possibly stumble a touch out of the gate. However, unlike the batters before who had large sample sizes to draw data from, Parker only has 27.2 career major league innings in March and April, so take this with a grain of salt. He does follow it up with a career ERA of 1.61 in May that comes with a K/9 of 12.2. Martin Perez-March/April ERA of 4.76, career ERA of 4.63 I remember when my phone buzzed for the notification that the Twins had signed Martin Perez after which followed about 10 minutes of questioning before hopping on Twitter to see that everyone else had similar thoughts regarding the signing, most of them could be summarized by one word; “why?”. Perez had a horrendous 2018 and it seemed like a strange signing given the other starting pitching available. After the months went by, the Twins reasoning slowly seeped out, they thought that they could squeeze some extra velocity out of him and change his pitch usage a bit to become a deadly weapon in the rotation. His spring training numbers as the new Martin Perez were a mixed bag, but his velocity certainly was up as he mainly sat about 95 and would occasionally touch 97. Whether this translates to the regular season will be seen soon enough, but if he’s anything like the old Martin Perez, it could take him a little bit before he gets going.

For fun, I'll break down how the Twins probable 2019 bullpen breaks down by the way the player was acquired: Free Agency-Addison Reed, Matt Magill, Blake Parker Trade-Trevor May, Adalberto Mejia Developed-Trevor Hildenberger, Taylor Rogers, Fernando Romero Waiver claim- This is my best guess at least, interesting to see the difference but I don't think it means a whole lot

Ever since the Twins decided to stop playing in a stadium that had the aesthetic of a bowling alley, it has felt like they've needed to improve the bullpen. I’m not saying there is a correlation here, but maybe the threat of a screaming foul ball taking care of someone’s shin made the relievers pitch just a little better in the Metrodome. Personally, I don’t think I have trusted a Twins bullpen since 2010 when they had Jon Rauch, Matt Guerrier, Jesse Crain and, *gulp*, Matt Capps sitting out there in left-center.And my oddly specific intuition is mostly correct. Since that year, the Twins have been ranked the 29th, 25th, 4th, 23rd, 23rd, 21st, 19th and 18th best bullpen respectively by fWAR each year from 2011 to now. That comes out to an average of ~20th each year that is propped up massively by the one year it was actually good. Meaning that the bullpen has been near the top of the to-do list during the offseason for quite some time now. This offseason was no different, while the bullpen was technically the best it had been since 2013, it was obvious that they needed to upgrade with some reliever additions if they wanted a chance to build a stable pen. And so we waited and waited this offseason as cheap, reliable veteran relievers were signed and so far the bullpen addition has been … Blake Parker. I’m being a bit unfair here because Parker had an incredible 2017 with the Angels and was still pretty good last year. There also appears to be internal help as Fernando Romero has also been moved to the pen along with possibly Martin Perez or Adalberto Mejia. Also internally, Trevor Hildenberger and Addison Reed present themselves as interesting bounce-back candidates but I really only trust the server of sliders to actually do so (imaginary sliders, not real ones, it does annoy me slightly that Hildy’s best pitch is actually the changeup but that’s neither here nor there). One interesting thing from the numbers I presented earlier was that 2013 bullpen, going from 25th the year before to fourth is quite the drastic jump. While I won’t be looking at that bullpen specifically as the target of this article, I will be looking at another similar bullpen example in the Padres. San Diego’s bullpen in 2017 was ranked 24th in ERA, 29th in FIP, and 29th in fWAR. In 2018, their bullpen was ranked sixth in ERA, second in FIP, and second in fWAR. These are all major improvements from only a one year difference. How did they do it? Well hop on in and I’ll break down how their personnel changed and what the major factors for these drastic turnarounds were. Let’s start with the Padres in 2017, here are the eight relievers who logged the most innings for the Padres out of the bullpen in 2017 ranked by total innings: Download attachment: PenChart1.png These players made up the majority of the second-worst bullpen that year, and here’s how they lined up in 2018 with asterisks on the returning players: Download attachment: PenChart2.png A few things here, this is now the second straight article I have made that references Robbie Erlin, I don’t know how to feel about that. Also, the Padres really blurred the line between starter and reliever so many of these guys logged innings in both roles which forced me to check how they got their innings for this article to be accurate which was a pain in the butt. Also, Jordan Lyles has a negative career rWAR, stop giving him jobs. And finally, who was the leader in rWAR for the Padres last year? That’s right, Hunter Renfroe apparently was, what an odd team. Anyways, let’s ignore my semi-coherent rambling thoughts and talk about the topic at hand, the 2018 Padres only saw four guys remain from the previous year along with 4 fresh faces who made major impacts on the 2018 team. Where did all of these guys come from? Well, let’s break that down also: Free Agency-Craig Stammen, Jordan Lyles Trade-Matt Strahm, Robbie Erlin Developed-Adam Cimber, Phil Maton Waiver claim-Brad Hand, Kirby Yates An awfully balanced way to build a pen, almost suspiciously balanced. Why is it suspicious? I don’t know, it just is. Even those free agent additions weren’t big name tickets, as mentioned before, Lyles holds a negative career rWAR and Stammen was consistent for years with the Nationals but had missed two whole years of major league time before latching on with the Padres in 2017. Strahm was a talented lefty with the Royals who came over when the Royals were actually buyers in 2017 (if you can believe that) while Erlin was in the Mike Adams trade many moons ago (y’all remember Mike Adams)? Maton and Cimber were never highly rated prospects in the consistently great Padres system but worked themselves up through the ranks before getting their major league chances in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Hand and Yates are interesting cases. Hand was a struggling starter for years with the Marlins before San Diego claimed him, made him a reliever, and turned him into Andrew Miller Lite. Yates bounced around a few teams and had decent peripherals in some small samples but when even the Rays don’t want an extra look at you, that’s usually a bad sign. But he added a splitter when he joined the Padres and then became death, the destroyer of worlds. All in all, this is an awfully long-winded way of saying that a team doesn’t need to make a big splash to have an elite bullpen. The Padres used wood, glue and duct tape to build one of the best bullpens in the game thanks to their pitching coach Darren Balsley and a front office that has an eye for talent and the patience to let that talent develop. The Twins will look to somewhat follow suit as they advance in 2019 hoping that players like Matt Magill, Fernando Romero and possibly an NRI or two can improve under the eyes of Wes Johnson and stick in the Twins pen to give them a similar boost that the Padres saw in 2018. Talent takes many shapes, sometimes it's hard to see how a player can become great, but oftentimes they’re just a few adjustments away from letting their skill shine. Along with improving internally, the Padres were also forward thinking on how they could get the most from their pitching staff as they utilized them more as “out-getters” rather than designating them specifically as starters or relievers. On the outside, it doesn't appear as if the Padres made any major moves to go from one of the worst bullpens in baseball to one of the best. And even after they traded Hand and Cimber to the Indians, they went on to have the highest bullpen fWAR in all of baseball in the second half! All they did was improve everyone by just a little bit and the effects were enormous, having a system of internal improvement will yield results that ripple throughout the entire team more than any single signing can. So, if Wes and the boys prove to be the difference makers they all seem to be, the Twins could easily follow in the footsteps of the Padres and have a great bullpen in 2019. Oh, and last year the Padres paid less for all of those eight guys than what Addison Reed alone made. Click here to view the article

Well, yeah the point was that the Padres had a large group of "whom?" relievers and were able to put it together to have one of the best bullpens in the league. The Twins already have a decent foundation with Rogers and May, it's just up to the other players along with the pitching coaches to put it together.

Ever since the Twins decided to stop playing in a stadium that had the aesthetic of a bowling alley, it has felt like the Twins have needed to improve their bullpen. Now, I’m not saying there is a correlation here, but maybe the threat of a screaming foul ball taking care of someone’s shin made the relievers pitch just a little better in the Metrodome. Personally, I don’t think I have trusted a Twins bullpen since 2010 when they had Jon Rauch, Matt Guerrier, Jesse Crain, and, *gulp*, Matt Capps sitting out there in left-center ready to contain the lead. And my oddly specific intuition is mostly correct, since that year, the Twins have been ranked the 29th, 25th, 4th, 23rd, 23rd, 21st, 19th, and 18th best bullpen respectively by fWAR each year from 2011 to now. That comes out to an average of ~20th each year that is propped up massively by the one year it was actually good. Meaning that the bullpen has been near the top of the to-do list during the offseason for quite some time now. This offseason was no different, while the bullpen was technically the best it had been since 2013, it was obvious that they needed to upgrade with some reliever additions if they wanted a chance to build a stable pen. And so we waited and waited this offseason as cheap, reliable veteran relievers were signed and so far the bullpen addition has been… Blake Parker. I’m being a bit unfair here because Parker had an incredible 2017 with the Angels and was still pretty good last year and there appears to be internal help as Fernando Romero has also been moved to the pen along with possibly Martin Perez or Adalberto Mejia. Also internally, Trevor Hildenberger and Addison Reed present themselves as interesting bounce-back candidates but I really only trust the server of sliders to actually do so (imaginary sliders, not real ones, it does annoy me slightly that Hildy’s best pitch is actually the changeup but that’s neither here nor there). One interesting thing from the numbers I presented earlier was that 2013 bullpen, going from 25th the year before to 4th is quite the drastic jump. While I won’t be looking at that bullpen specifically as the target of this article, I will be looking at another similar bullpen example in the Padres. San Diego’s bullpen in 2017 was ranked 24th in ERA, 29th in FIP, and 29th in fWAR. In 2018, their bullpen was ranked 6th in ERA, 2nd in FIP, and 2nd in fWAR. These are all major improvements from only a one year difference. How did they do it? Well hop on in and I’ll break down how their personnel changed and what the major factors for these drastic turnarounds were. Let’s start with the Padres in 2017, here are the 8 relievers who logged the most innings for the Padres out of the bullpen in 2017 ranked by total innings: These players made up the majority of the 2nd worst bullpen that year, and here’s how they lined up in 2018 with asterisks on the returning players: A few things here, this is now the second straight article I have made that references Robbie Erlin, I don’t know how to feel about that. Also, the Padres really blurred the line between starter and reliever so many of these guys logged innings in both roles which forced me to check how they got their innings for this article to be accurate which was a pain in the butt. Also, Jordan Lyles has a negative career rWAR, stop giving him jobs. And finally, who was the leader in rWAR for the Padres last year? That’s right, Hunter Renfroe apparently was, what an odd team. Anyways, let’s ignore my semi-coherent rambling thoughts and talk about the topic at hand, the 2018 Padres only saw 4 guys remain from the previous year along with 4 fresh faces who made major impacts on the 2018 team. Where did all of these guys come from? Well, let’s break that down also: Free Agency-Craig Stammen, Jordan Lyles Trade-Matt Strahm, Robbie Erlin Developed-Adam Cimber, Phil Maton Waiver claim-Brad Hand, Kirby Yates An awfully balanced way to build a pen, almost suspiciously balanced. Why is it suspicious? I don’t know, it just is. Even those free agent additions weren’t big name tickets, as mentioned before, Lyles holds a negative career rWAR and Stammen was consistent for years with the Nationals but had missed two whole years of major league time before latching on with the Padres in 2017. Strahm was a talented lefty with the Royals who came over when the Royals were actually buyers in 2017 (if you can believe that) while Erlin was in the Mike Adams trade many moons ago (y’all remember Mike Adams)? Maton and Cimber were never highly rated prospects in the consistently great Padres system but worked themselves up through the ranks before getting their major league chances in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Hand and Yates are interesting cases. Hand was a struggling starter for years with the Marlins before San Diego claimed him, made him a reliever, and turned him into Andrew Miller Lite. Yates bounced around a few teams and had decent peripherals in some small samples but when even the Rays don’t want an extra look at you, that’s usually a bad sign. But he added a splitter when he joined the Padres and then became death, the destroyer of worlds. All in all, this is an awfully long-winded way of saying that a team doesn’t need to make a big splash to have an elite bullpen. The Padres used wood, glue, and duct tape and had one of the best bullpens in the game thanks to their pitching coach Darren Balsley and a front office that has an eye for talent and the patience to let that talent develop. The Twins will look to somewhat follow suit as they advance in 2019 hoping that players like Matt Magill, Fernando Romero, and possibly an NRI or two can improve under the eyes of Wes Johnson and stick in the Twins pen to give them a similar boost that the Padres saw in 2018. Talent takes many shapes, sometimes it's hard to see how a player can become great, but oftentimes they’re just a few adjustments away from letting their skill shine. Along with improving internally, the Padres were also forward thinking on how they could get the most from their pitching staff as they utilized them more as “out-getters” rather than designating them specifically as “starters” or “relievers”. On the outside, it doesn't appear as if the Padres made any major moves to go from one of the worst bullpens in baseball to one of the best. And even after they traded Hand and Cimber to the Indians, they went on to have the highest bullpen fWAR in all of baseball in the 2nd half! All they did was improve everyone by just a little bit and the effects were enormous, having a system of internal improvement will yield results that ripple throughout the entire team more than any single signing can. So, if Wes and the boys prove to be the difference makers they all seem to be, the Twins could easily follow in the footsteps of the Padres and have a great bullpen in 2019. Oh, and last year the Padres paid less for all of those 8 guys than what Addison Reed alone made.

To imply that sometimes teams don't act in the best interest in their players' health? I'm not advocating for doing it, but it isn't a rare occurrence at all.

Pelf was actually one of the names in the cutting room when I was making the article, I didn't include him because he had a normal 12-month break but he did toss ~150 innings in his first year back

Lynn had his in November 2015-made his debut back in the start of 2017 Arroyo had his in July 2014-made his debut back in the start of 2017 Wheeler has his in March 2015-made his debut back in the start of 2017 Lackey had his in November 2011-made his debut back in the start of 2013 Erlin had his in May 2016-made his debut back in the start of 2018 Harvey had his in October 2013-made his debut back in the start of 2015

The 6’ 7” beast Michael Pineda took the mound the other day in Fort Myers and fired off two scoreless innings to go with his two previous scoreless innings, giving him an easy to calculate ERA of 0.00 so far in spring training. Pineda last pitched in the majors for the Yankees but you might have also recognized him by his nicknames “Big Mike” or “Large Mikeal” or “Why is That Mountain Moving?”When he was signed in the offseason following the 2017 season, it was with the understanding that his value would mostly be in the 2019 season and he would most likely not pitch in 2018 for the Twins as he continued to rehab from Tommy John surgery. His two year $10 million deal essentially works as a one-year deal and set the blueprint for Garrett Richards to sign a similar contract with the Padres this last offseason. Although, Pineda might have had better offers from Rick Spielman to start at guard for the Vikings for the upcoming season. Pineda could prove to be an important bridge in an uncertain Twins starting rotation. While most teams would be happy with a 1-2 punch of Berrios and Gibson to lead the rotation, the names after them aren’t quite as exciting. Odorizzi is fine but should ideally be your fourth starter and the number of candidates for the fifth spot is as long as Santa’s nice/naughty list but has more naughtys than I care for. So getting 160-170 quality innings from Pineda could prove key to leading a strong Twins team in contending for the AL Central title against the Indians. But what does history have to say about starting pitchers who have had such an extended absence due to injury? Pineda’s last major league outing was on July 5, 2017 which is a good 20 months ago. Is it realistic to assume that he can come back and be the normal Pineda in 2019? I looked through the long list of recent MLB starting pitchers who underwent TJ surgery between 2011 and 2017. I cut it off at 2017 because those players have not had their full season of performance yet following their surgery. Then I found the guys who hadn’t played in MLB in over 15 months after their surgery to get a sample size of guys more similar to Pineda. And finally, I only included pitchers who started the season on the major league squad so that they would have a full season of work on their plate as their first taste of the majors after surgery like Pineda and so that their innings totals wouldn’t be skewed. The list of players goes as follows: Bronson Arroyo, Zack Wheeler, A.J. Griffin, Robbie Erlin, Lance Lynn, Matt Harvey, John Lackey An interesting assortment of names, sure, but these are the most similar comps to Pineda that have come about in recent history as far as time off goes. Here they are broken down by innings totals in their first full year back from injury: 60-80 innings: Bronson Arroyo 80-100 innings: Zack Wheeler 100-120 innings: A.J. Griffin, Robbie Erlin 180-200 innings: Lance Lynn, Matt Harvey, John Lackey Well, that’s certainly something. Arroyo was old and bad at this time so take that with what you will. Wheeler was seemingly in witness protection for a few years there as he was suffering from Mets-itits before breaking out just this past year. Griffin missed some time due to injury in his first year back which ultimately hampered his innings total but that could very well be a problem for Pineda as well this upcoming year. Lance Lynn, Matt Harvey and John Lackey all had seemingly normal years immediately following their extended recovery, but Harvey also presents himself as a cautionary tale of why innings limits exist for players recently removed from surgery. He went over his innings limit in 2015 and has not been the same pitcher since. Personally, I find this data to actually be rather optimistic. While no pitcher was within that 160-170 innings total that I mentioned before, a few pitchers were able to come back and have normal years even after an extended break due to recovery. While I don’t want to go as far as thanking Lance Lynn for what he did, he is among those who represent a ray of hope that Pineda can be consistently relied upon in 2019. Now, you might have noticed that I did not mention Robbie Erlin yet. Erlin worked this last year as a swingman for the Padres, or the Giants, be honest, you don’t know whether or not Robbie Erlin actually exists much less the team he plays for. But Fangraphs tells me that there allegedly was a player under the pseudonym “Robbie Erlin” for the Friars last year who got his innings out of the pen and as a starter, and I find that very interesting. The Padres most likely observed the Harvey fiasco and decided it was best not to follow that same path so they artificially reduced Erlin's innings totals by limiting his chances at getting a large number of outs. Why do I find that interesting? The crafty Twins have recently been rather vague about their plans for getting outs in the 2019 season. Instead of referring to Fernando Romero as a reliever, they said that they will transition him to get him ready for “shorter stints”. Instead of saying that Adalberto Mejia is a starter, they said that he will be stretched out for “extended outings”. While GM talk is nothing new, the new wave of baseball strategy has been focused on getting the most outs you can in the most efficient way possible. Hell, Craig Counsell in his infinite wisdom just refers to his pitchers now as “out-getters”. You can say that baseball is getting more progressive in their old and archaic categorizing of pitchers, but it seems to me that teams are catching on to the most effective ways to get outs in today’s game. Much like with the Padres and Erlin, I have to assume the Twins are also very concerned with Pineda’s innings limit. No specific number has become public, but there has to be one. And possibly as a way to limit those innings, we may see the Twins try a bevy of things for Pineda. Maybe they use an opener for him, maybe he is the opener for someone, maybe he occasionally works in long relief, maybe he closes some games! I absolutely would not put it past the Twins to try any number of these strategies to avoid a Matt Harvey situation in the future. Although that also begs the question, do they care? Is Pineda just here as a placeholder for another guy to come in in 2020? While it may be morally wrong, how much would the Twins care about ruining the arm of a guy they have no intention of keeping long term? As the season plays out, we shall see the answers to these questions, but keep in mind that it is realistic for Pineda to fire off a full season of work as a starter in 2019. Click here to view the article

The 6’ 7” beast Michael Pineda took the mound the other day in Fort Myers and fired off 2 scoreless innings to go with his 2 previous scoreless innings, giving him an easy to calculate ERA of 0.00 so far in spring training. Pineda last pitched in the majors for the Yankees but you might have also recognized him by his nicknames “Big Mike” or “Large Mikeal” or “Why is That Mountain Moving?” When he was signed in the offseason following the 2017 season, it was with the understanding that his value would mostly be in the 2019 season and he would most likely not pitch in 2018 for the Twins as he continued to rehab from Tommy John surgery. His 2 year $10 million deal essentially works as a 1-year deal and set the blueprint for Garrett Richards to sign a similar deal with the Padres this last offseason. Although, Pineda might have had better offers from Rick Spielman to start at guard for the Vikings for the upcoming season. Pineda could prove to be an important bridge in an uncertain Twins starting rotation. While most teams would be happy with a 1-2 punch of Berrios and Gibson to lead the rotation, the names after them aren’t quite as exciting. Odorizzi is fine but should ideally be your 4th starter and the number of candidates for the 5th spot is as long as Santa’s nice/naughty list but has more naughtys than I care for. So getting 160-170 quality innings from Pineda could prove key to leading a strong Twins team in contending for the AL Central title against the Indians. But what does history have to say about starting pitchers who have had such an extended absence due to injury? Pineda’s last major league outing was on July 5th in 2017 which is a good 20 months ago, is it realistic to assume that he can come back and be the normal Pineda in 2019? I looked through the long list of recent MLB starting pitchers who underwent TJ surgery between 2011 and 2017. I cut it off at 2017 because those players have not had their full season of performance yet following their surgery. Then I found the guys who hadn’t played in MLB in over 15 months after their surgery to get a sample size of guys more similar to Pineda. And finally, I only included pitchers who started the season on the major league squad so that they would have a full season of work on their plate as their first taste of the majors after surgery like Pineda and so that their innings totals wouldn’t be skewed. The list of players goes as follows: Bronson Arroyo, Zack Wheeler, A.J. Griffin, Robbie Erlin, Lance Lynn, Matt Harvey, John Lackey An interesting assortment of names, sure, but these are the most similar comps to Pineda that have come about in recent history as far as time off goes. Here they are broken down by innings totals in their first full year back from injury: 60-80 innings: Bronson Arroyo 80-100 innings: Zack Wheeler 100-120 innings: A.J. Griffin, Robbie Erlin 180-200 innings: Lance Lynn, Matt Harvey, John Lackey Well, that’s certainly something. Arroyo was old and bad at this time so take that with what you will. Wheeler was seemingly in witness protection for a few years there as he was suffering from Metsitits before breaking out just this past year. Griffin missed some time due to injury in his first year back which ultimately hampered his innings total but that could very well be a problem for Pineda as well this upcoming year. Lance Lynn, Matt Harvey, and John Lackey all had seemingly normal years immediately following their extended recovery, but Harvey also presents himself as a cautionary tale of why innings limits exist for players recently removed from surgery. He went over his innings limit in 2015 and has not been the same pitcher since. Personally, I find this data to actually be rather optimistic. While no pitcher was within that 160-170 innings total that I mentioned before, a few pitchers were able to come back and have normal years even after an extended break due to recovery. While I don’t want to go as far as thanking Lance Lynn for what he did, he is among those who represent a ray of hope that Pineda can be consistently relied upon in 2019. Now, you might have noticed that I did not mention Robbie Erlin yet. Erlin worked this last year as a swingman for the Padres, or the Giants, be honest, you don’t know whether or not Robbie Erlin actually exists much less the team he plays for. But Fangraphs tells me that there allegedly was a player under the pseudonym “Robbie Erlin” for the Friars last year who got his innings out of the pen and as a starter, and I find that very interesting. The Padres most likely observed the Harvey fiasco and decided it was best not to follow that same path so they artificially reduced Erlin's innings totals by limiting his chances at getting a large number of outs. Why do I find that interesting? The crafty Twins have recently been rather vague about their plans for getting outs in the 2019 season. Instead of referring to Fernando Romero as a reliever, they said that they will transition him to get him ready for “shorter stints”. Instead of saying that Adalberto Mejia is a starter, they said that he will be stretched out for “extended outings”. While GM talk is nothing new, the new wave of baseball strategy has been focused on getting the most outs you can in the most efficient way possible. Hell, Craig Counsell in his infinite wisdom just refers to his pitchers now as “out-getters”. You can say that baseball is getting more progressive in their old and archaic categorizing of pitchers, but it seems to me that teams are catching on to the most effective ways to get outs in today’s game. Much like with the Padres and Erlin, I have to assume the Twins are also very concerned with Pineda’s innings limit. No specific number has become public, but there has to be one. And possibly as a way to limit those innings, we may see the Twins try a bevy of things for Pineda. Maybe they use an opener for him, maybe he is the opener for someone, maybe he occasionally works in long relief, maybe he closes some games! I absolutely would not put it past the Twins to try any number of these strategies to avoid a Matt Harvey situation in the future. Although that also begs the question, do they care? Is Pineda just here as a placeholder for another guy to come in in 2020? While it may be morally wrong, how much would the Twins care about ruining the arm of a guy they have no intention of keeping long term? As the season plays out, we shall see the answers to these questions, but keep in mind that it is realistic for Pineda to fire off a full season of work as a starter in 2019.

Recently I was messing around on MLB.com for no particularly good or suspicious reason when I stumbled upon their top prospects list. Now, we all are familiar with prospects because as Twins fans, they sometimes bring us more hope than the major league team. But even cooler than the updated top prospects list was an archived top prospects list from 2011 that included their top 50 prospects of the year along with top 10 lists for each team. An oh boy does nothing brew my fair-trade espresso like looking back at old prospects lists and chuckling at how their careers actually turned out. Guys like Machado, Harper, and Trout were all in the top 10 and have been excellent so far while guys like Jacob Turner, Martin Perez, and Shelby Miller haven’t quite lived up to their hype. Baseball is a funny game and how good of a prospect a player oftentimes does not correlate to major league success. So buckle in and get ready for some weird nostalgia. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2011/ Aaron Hicks I swear on my life that I didn’t plan this, but the news of Aaron Hicks’ new 7-year extension with the Yankees broke earlier this week and basically every part of that sentence just absolutely stings. Hicks was the OG toolsy centerfielder before Buxton was even in the picture and there was a lot to like about his game. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t end too well for us Twins fans; Hicks struggled in the majors for the Twins, was traded to the Yankees after the 2015 season for John Ryan Murphy, then struggled in 2016 for the Yankees before figuring it out in 2017 and is now coming off a fresh 4.9 fWAR season for the Yankees. There really isn’t any way that you can slice that trade that makes it look good for the Twins, but it does hurt a touch less considering how good the Twins OF is even without Hicks. And it makes me feel a little better if I think of it as a Hicks for Moya trade because good Lord, John Ryan Murphy was just awful for the Twins. Terry Ryan should have known not to trust a guy with 3 first names, but here we are. JRM was one of the worst Twins players I had ever seen and the only fond memory I have of him is when he got tossed in Houston after Jerry Layne’s ego got in the way of making a strike 3 call. Kyle Gibson What an interesting career Gibson has had so far. Gibby was originally taken as a 1st round college arm in 2009 because the Twins philosophy at the time was “take college pitchers in the 1st to get them here as quick as possible”. Gibby took a little longer than expected due to getting Tommy John surgery late in 2011, but he eventually debuted in 2013. After some solid yet unspectacular seasons in 2014 and 2015, the metaphorical feces hit the fan in 2016 and the first half of 2017 for Gibby as his standard groundball special became obsolete and hitters started to tee off on the poor guy. After being sent to AAA in 2017 and changing how he pitched (along with probably “finding himself” or something equally deep), Gibby started to strike people out and he pitched well in the 2nd half of 2017. All of this led to a full breakout 2018 campaign at the ripe age of 30 for the converted groundball man and he looks to stabilize the rotation again in 2019. Miguel Sano Here we have yet another unusual career path because God forbid a Twins prospect develops normally into a quality MLB player without a speed bump or 7 along the way. Sano was one of the few good moves made by Bill Smith as he was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2009 as a 16-year-old (allegedly, according to Joe Simpson). He mashed through the minors before losing an entire year in 2014 due to Tommy John surgery but skipped AAA the next year and made his MLB debut in 2015. And oh boy did he make a debut. He absolutely mashed to the tune of a 149 wRC+ and was seemingly crushing clutch homers every single night. 2016 was less kind to Sano as he struggled with injuries and dumbassery when the Twins attempted to move him to RF to keep elite third baseman Trevor Plouffe on the roster. 2017 was kinder as he made the All-Star game but still struggled with injuries later in the season. 2018 was just absolutely turrible in the full Charles Barkley sense of the word for him but let’s not dwell on the past. Sano is still around as a 25-year-old (allegedly also to the dude who cares about that kind of thing) with All-Star upside but needs to have a good 2019 year to show that he can stick in the Twins’ future plans. Oswaldo Arcia Oh man, Oswaldo Arcia, what a headache this guy was. All the talent in the world but couldn’t make contact, or hit the ball to left field, or field, or run… Really, it isn’t much of a surprise that this guy flamed out. Arcia is pretty much the cookie-cutter bust as he hung around for a few years with meh numbers and was finally DFA’d in 2016 when the team had enough finally. I mean seriously, when you can’t even make the 2016 Twins better, that isn’t a great sign for where you are skill-wise. Arcia bounced around to a number of teams that year and then chilled in Arizona’s minor league system in 2017 before going international to further his career. He was actually supposed to play in the AAA All-Star game in 2017 but didn’t end up going for some reason. I don’t know who would turn down a nice trip to Tacoma, Washington like that. Now we get to watch his brother, Orlando, do things for Milwaukee and then get the cold 1000-yard stare whenever the word “Arcia” is mentioned. Apparently, he signed a contract with a Mexican league team about 2 weeks ago, so that’s neat. Joe Benson Y’all remember Joe Benson? This absolute legend has all of 74 major league plate appearances and holds a career wRC+ of 67. Benson was in the minor league system for the Twins for what felt like forever but never really got a major shot until 2011. Ironically enough, Benson lost the starting centerfield job to Aaron Hicks in 2013 during spring training and was placed on waivers later that year to make room for P.J. Walters. Benson bounced around some other minor league teams afterward and was last recorded as signing with the Chicago Dogs in Indy ball. Also, as a fun fact to use whenever at the bar, Benson’s first career hit came off of Max Scherzer, so use that for a pickup line whenever you need. That was not a fun trip down memory lane, but I do think it is necessary for us to check our hype on prospects occasionally. As fans, we always expect the perfect outcomes for them as we envision them as future All-Stars who lock down the team for years to come, but the truth is, they don’t always pan out, and that was a big reason for the Twins struggles in the early Target Field era, the Twins couldn’t develop an actual prospect to save their life. Under the new regime, however, a great number of excellent coaches and modern technologies have been implemented to make sure the next wave of top prospects in Royce Lewis, Alex Kirilloff, and Brusdar Graterol, among others can succeed when they hit the majors.

This time of the year is always exciting as a baseball fan, the start of spring training brings an undeniable energy that rejuvenates every single fanbase across the country, yes, even Mariners fans. But the last two offseasons now have brought the droning, political, and monotonous free agency cycle bleeding into the beginning of spring training. Whether it be the owners becoming greedy and selfish in their wealth, the front offices becoming wiser in how money is allocated in free agent deals, or Scott Boras wanting to piss off every single team with his negotiating style, players and teams are no longer seeing eye-to-eye and deals have taken longer to manifest. Even with the shocking announcement of Manny Machado manifest destinying his way out west again, there still sits a bounty of veteran players available on the free agent market including a handful of players who would make every team in baseball better with their presence. One of those players is Craig Kimbrel, a hard-throwing righty who looks like a stunt double who Peter Jackson rejected from his Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Even with this demeanor, Kimbrel has carved out a career as one of the best closers in the game and currently sits as the 14th highest saves getter in MLB history despite being only 30. Now, before I go any farther, I want to make something very clear. I have been a fan of the moves the Twins have made so far this offseason. I love the Cruz addition along with both Kepler’s and Polanco’s extensions, I like the Parker, Schoop, and Cron additions, and I have even come around on believing in a Martin Perez bounceback. I have especially been a fan of the revamped coaching staff at all levels that have included hiring a slew of progressive, forward-thinking coaches with Rocco Baldelli now at the helm of the major league team. I also love reading stories about Wes Johnson, who would probably whoop Rick Anderson if he heard him talking about “pitching to contact”. That all being said, it feels disappointing as a fan to see such a large amount of payroll currently sitting there completely unused. Even the most radical fan understood that they were never going to spend like the Dodgers, but there is still a decent gap between where they are now and where they could still be within the usual parameters of their spending habits. And the size of that gap is 6 feet tall and sticks his arm out like a pelican before delivering a pitch. When talking about Kimbrel’s dominance, his stats truly speak for themselves. His career 14.67 K/9 is so obscene and disgusting that even speaking it out loud could get you arrested for indecent exposure. His career fWAR of 19.0 is 14th all-time among relievers despite the fact that he has half or even a third of the total innings of some of the names ahead of him. His career ERA of 1.91 is 1st among all relievers in MLB history with at least 500 innings thrown. Yes, it is lower than perfect hall of famer, Mariano Rivera. And take a good guess where his career FIP ranks also among relievers with at least 500 innings pitched. Ah, but there is indeed a reason why Kimbrel has not signed isn’t there? We all know what his career has been so far, but MLB teams care more about where your career is going from here, and as I found out in a previous article, relievers typically have a short shelf life in MLB. Kimbrel struggled in 2018 or at least did so by his standards, much like when the smart kid gets an A-. But this A- came with a higher than normal BB/9 of 4.48, a lower than normal K/9 of 13.68, a 2nd half ERA of 4.57, and one hell of a messy playoff streak that is still in the minds of everyone. Despite what the narratives feel like for the redbeard though, his ERA last year was still just 2.74 and his FIP was a “high” 3.13. That FIP would slide in right behind Taylor Rogers and Trevor May for the Twins and be 3rd among their relievers in 2018 or by relievers who threw a full season for the Twins and only the Twins last year, just Taylor Rogers. Strategically, having the sleeping dragon as the final boss in the Twins pen would have an incredible ripple effect throughout all their relievers. May and Rogers would be unleashed in fireman roles, calming down rallies before they even get a chance to begin. Trevor Hildenberger and Addison Reed can re-find their footing in lower leverage roles earlier in the game and eat up important innings before the meat of the pen can do their work. Blake Parker can go do Blake Parker things when needed and Fernando Romero can terrorize hitters at will with his disgusting 98 MPH two-seamer. In my plan, Andrew Vasquez is also here to serve up sliders at a rate that would make White Castle jealous because Gabriel Moya gives me anxiety when he pitches. Also, replacing Matt Magill with Kimbrel would take their projected fWAR total out of the bullpen from 19th in baseball at 2.1 to tied with the Astros at 4th with an fWAR total of 4.2. And changing Magill with Kimbrel in practice is a lot like replacing a flyswatter with a bazooka. I’ve gushed over Kimbrel’s ability quite a lot in this article, but something that a lot of Twins fans would also like to know is that his average fastball velocity last year was 97.1 MPH. Yes, he threw 97 on average. Was there even a guy for the Twins last year to throw a single heater that fast? Maybe old man Rodney, but no one else was doing it as consistently as Kimbrel over here. And as a fan of a team that has been notoriously poor in developing hard-throwing pitchers cough cough, Alex Meyer, cough cough, wouldn’t it feel great to finally have a guy spitting fire in the pen? Earlier this month, Dan Hayes did mention that there was interest on the Twins side to bring Kimbrel aboard and with recent news that the Red Sox would rather play with their World Series trophy than bring him back, the amount of teams that are in play for Kimbrel appears to be limited. While we have heard nothing as far as years and money that the Twins have offered, I can say with a good deal of confidence that there is no contract they could offer that would tank them for the duration of such a deal. I personally would offer Kimbrel a 3 year $54 million deal with a vesting option for a 4th year. That $18 million would bring the Twins to a payroll total around the number it was at last year and would make them more respectable in the AL Central battle between them and the Indians without having to sacrifice flexibility for future contracts if other young guys figure their stuff out. So, Derek Falvey or whatever Twins front office member that stumbles on this article, I beg of you, sign this man to a contract as soon as you can. Twins fans would be very pleased and you would earn a good deal of credit in their eyes as they are begging for you to spend some money. Not only that, but you guys can get creative and put together an elaborate entrance plan for him as you did with Rodney, complete with flashing lights and hype music that could be heard from St. Cloud. I’ll leave you with Craig Kimbrel stealing Giancarlo Stanton’s soul with a curveball that would make Bert Blyleven proud. https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1048411416896659456 Now, does anyone know what Falvey’s email is? I’m trying to CC him this article but I can’t find him anywhere.