Jim H

Using a pitcher in relief before turning him back into a starter, isn't a new thing. Especially back in the day of 4 man staffs. Jim Perry for the Twins spent time in relief before he became a full time starter for the Twins. there are many other examples. All I am trying to say here, is that there shouldn't be a one size fits all approach to this sort of thing. There are circumstances surrounding Meyer that would make me very cautious about shoving him into a major league bullpen. Maybe in September when there are more pitchers and you can more carefully regulate his appearances. Now, I don't know, I just think you keep him at AAA until he is more consistent and it is clear the shoulder issues are behind him. I am a little unsure about your point of old pitchers on the Twins staff. Most of that is a result of several years of pitching prospects washing out in the minors, getting injured, or failing to perform at the major league level. I don't think the Twins really wanted to have to buy a staff of free agents. They largely had no choice. I believe that Meyer, May and Darnell have futures as major league starters. I am unsure if any of them are past the developmental stage, but clearly they are all close to major league ready. I expect to see them in the majors soon, in one role or another. Soon, may not be as soon as many fans would like, but I am hoping for long careers from all of them. I don't look at it as bullets being wasted in the minors, more as perfecting their craft.

Perhaps you forget that Santana was sent to the minors(after establishing that he was a pretty good relief pitcher) in order to work on his secondary pitches so he could be a starter. I think examples should be examined on a case by case basis. But, it is interesting that you use Johnson as an example since I don't remember him ever being used in relief. I also wonder just how you purpose to use Meyer in relief since he has always been a starter and being mindful of his shoulder issues. Can you use him back to back games as a reliever? Will the change in routine from being a starter effect him at all? Some starters turned relievers mention that this can be a problem. How are you going to help him develop his change up since he won't need it and probably wouldn't use it as a reliever? Which reliever do you purpose to screw over in order to protect the valuable arm of a future dominant starter? I think that being used in relief doesn't necessary protect an arm. Liriano pitched out of the bullpen for 2 months before being used as a starter. He still ended up with TJ surgery that year. Interestingly, Hughes maybe an example of how using someone in relief could of slowed his development as a starter. He was brought up to the majors before he had fully developed his secondary pitches. Since he didn't need them as a reliever, he didn't use them when he was a pretty effective reliever. When he went back to starting, one of his issues was he didn't have effective secondary pitches to play off of his fastballs. There is no way to know of course, but if Hughes had been left in the minors and worked on his curveball or a change up for another half year or even longer, and then put directly into the rotation-would he of become what he seems to be becoming right now, sooner? I don't know, you don't know but it is interesting speculation. The reason the minors exist is for development. It appears that Meyer has some development to go. As you say, he will need to refine things in the majors, but perhaps a little more development won't hurt him.

I think you are oversimplifying what Gardy said in ST. Nevertheless, I am not so sure it is a particularly good plan to take a guy who has a potential future as a dominating ace, and shove him into a major league bullpen. Particularly when he has had shoulder issues and needs to work on his secondary pitches. Working out of a bullpen can be just as, perhaps harder on an arm than working as starter. As far as your 2nd point goes, people were clamoring for Meyer after 2 great starts, following a series of mediocre ones. I think that is a bit impatient, considering he was and is on a pitch limit and is still working on a new pitch.

How old were Radke, Hawkins, Liriano, and even Hendriks when they made the majors? If Berrios deserves to be in the majors when he is 21 or even 20, he will be there. You do have to factor in impatient fans, who for example thought Meyer should be in the majors 6 weeks ago.

I expect that the Yankees will end up throwing most of their money away if they out bid everybody for a bunch of the so called top thirty. We are talking about largely 16 year old kids. With rare exceptions, most of these top thirty won't amount to much. The odds are about as good to just sign a number of the next 50 for more reasonable money. That is largely what the Twins do every year, which is has yielded the Twins prospects like Arcia and Pinto. There are a few guys who really stand out at a young age, like Sano did. But most of the time there is a lot of projecting on these young guys. Which is a polite way of saying guessing. The Twins have a number of interesting international pitchers in their farm system right now. Very few of them received even modestly large bonuses. I expect that one or more of them (Thorpe, Romero and others) has about as good chance of becoming an ace as any of the guys in that year's "class" that received much larger bonuses.

I would hesitate to put Meyer in the bullpen. When you are a starter, you have a set routine getting ready for your next start. You have set throwing session or sessions between each start and plenty of time to warm up for each start. None of that is necessarily true when you are a reliever. You sometimes need to get ready in hurry. Most relievers need to able to pitch 2 or more days in a row. Meyer has never been a reliever and has had shoulder issues besides. You can't entirely be sure that pitching out of the bullpen wouldn't be harder on his arm than starting. My thought is let him be a starter. If he doesn't get to the majors this year because of pitch counts and innings limits, so be it. His future is a dominant starter, hopefully. I would rather the Twins didn't mess with that too much in the name of getting him to the majors a little earlier. Being a reliever is not necessarily easier on the arm than starting. Most starters turned relievers say that they had to learn whole new routines for that role. Let's just prepare Meyer for the role of starter.

I think you are perhaps right in your first statement. It usually takes around 90 wins to be in the playoffs. It might not take that many this year, but it is going to take some improvement for this team to get 85 plus. As far as the pitching goes, we all saw what Tonkin and Johnson looked like earlier this year in small samples. Tonkin was very inconsistent, Johnson's 1 start was painful to watch, even though he didn't give up any runs. Yet these are doing extremely well at AAA. It is best to take AAA numbers with a grain of salt, they often don't translate that well to the majors. As far as Burdi goes, he may well be very good, but expecting him to be ready for the majors is pretty optimistic. College competition is very below A ball in terms in of quality, it can be pretty difficult to make any realistic guess how college players will perform even in the minors much less the majors.

I have no confidence in defensive metrics and UZR is particularly awful. So I wouldn't pay much attention to that. With the admission that I haven't seen all his games at short, I would say that he lacks the range and probably the arm to be an outstanding major league shortstop. He has played well so far, and combined with his hitting, he is more than adequate there, for now. I see Santana as potentially a better medium term answer, with Escobar a better fit at utility man. At least for now, shortstop isn't a black hole. That is certainly something that is an improvement over the last few years.

I don't want to dump on LEN III, but really, there are only 3 officials in the Twins organization whose opinions count for much when it comes to the major league roster. That would be Gardy, Ryan and maybe Antony. Others may have input, but only those 3 have any control over the roster. If LEN III's sources were any of those 3, he would of quoted them, they don't hide behind anonymous quotes. They don't feed things to the press through others either. They may refuse to answer certain questions at times, but they tend to be pretty straight forward with their opinions, most of the time. So, while there are probably Twins officials who are frustrated with Hicks, and maybe some who feel he is blowing his chances, I don't think that the key officials would express that. On top of that, I doubt if Ryan or the others have actually given up on Hicks either. It would be out of character. One of Ryan's chief characteristics concerning young players is his patience and willingness to give them 2nd chances. Sometimes to a fault. The Twins appear to have misjudged his readiness for the majors. While some of that may be on Hicks as well, I don't think the Twins will give up on him until they are sure he won't be a big leaguer or there are much better options in place.

I don't know about all the legal or "moral" issues here. Sometimes that is in the eye of the beholder. One thing I would point out is if the cost of running the minors is raised, things will likely change in ways that might not benefit everyone. Right now, the Twins have quite a few more minor leaguers under contract than positions available. Many are at extended spring training. Should it become more expensive to sign so many minor leaguers, some teams could reduce the number of players, maybe even the number of teams. After all, many late round signings and many foreign signings are of marginal prospects, who really have little chance of ever making the majors. This becomes a cost/benefit issue. Why sign a bunch of guys who have little chance of ever playing in the majors if the total cost starts becoming significant? The only problem with that of course, is that sometimes marginal signings become real prospects. Josmil Pinto for example. It might be too bad if fewer marginal talents get chances in to play at all or have shorter leashes to show what they might develop into.

I don't think Vargas' size is the problem. His lack of position is a bit of a problem. The real problem maybe- is his bat quick enough? The Twins for years had a lot of guys who had power in the minors but sometimes they couldn't catch up to major league fastballs. Buchanon and LeCroy were 2 examples. If they cheated on the fastball, they would have problems with good breaking balls. To some degree, Parmelee has that problem. The real question for me with Vargas is-is his bat quick enough? He will be plenty good enough if he can catch up to good major league fastballs.

I have seen this post in various forms all winter. You seem to be conceding that Drew may not be able to hold off even what is likely to be a fairly mediocre shortstop like Santana in a year or so, that Drew is unlikely to remain healthy, and even if he does he is not going to much more than mediocre himself. So why exactly do you want Drew? It doesn't seem you think that Drew is so much of an improvement on Florimon, Escobar or Nunez that he will make a dramatic improvement on the Twins or the shortstop position. I would be very surprised if that were the case. So exactly what does Drew bring to the Twins that we should want him? I personally believe that adding Drew might actually get in the way of a long term solution, but I do understand that many of you don't feel that way. I know the Twins have money, and I am aware that the fail rate of 2nd round picks is high enough that losing the pick shouldn't be a huge factor. My problem is that I just don't think Drew is likely to be good enough, for long enough to be worth the cost. Personally, I would just go with Florimon until someone shows enough to move him aside. Or failing that, make a trade this offseason.

This is been the problem with Drew all along. He is going to be pretty expensive, will need to be signed for awhile, and I agree with Nick-he hasn't been all that good. So the most likely outcome is you tie yourself to a solution who is likely to be among the poorest big league shortstops. You are mostly preventing yourself from seeking a better outside solution and it will be almost equally difficult to find out about a potential internal solution(such as Santana) should one present itself.

As said above, this thread is well traveled territory and the responses will be pretty predictable. What I will say is this, I believe Ryan said that a major difference between him and Smith was that he(Ryan) was more patient than Smith. I do think that 2 of Ryan's strengths are talent evaluation combined with patience. Once Ryan had decided that a player had a certain level of talent and a good chance to reach it, he usually gave that player a chance to get there. The most notable exception to that was Ortiz. Sometimes, perhaps he was too patient(see Rivas and others). But often I think he gave guys plenty of opportunites to prove their worth and often it worked out. Some examples could include Hunter, Koskie, Perkins, Cuddyer and Plouffe. None of this necessarily makes Ryan a great general manager, but one of things that has often hurt other franchises in baseball and even franchises in other sports such as the Timberwolves, is a lack of patience to let a plan work itself out.

I think everyone is missing the point. What the Twins should be/probably are trying to do is what is best for Meyer in both the shortterm and longterm. He maybe a special talent, but it doesn't matter really, if he is better right now than some of the current starters, what should matter is getting that special talent developed in the best way possible. Clearly, the Twins told him that one way to improve himself and make him more effective at the major league level was to work on his changeup. So he changes his grip and comes up with(maybe) an effective changeup that he has thrown maybe 20 times in an actual game. The minors is the place where you be should experimenting with new grips or new pitches. I think this is the right approach. Bringing him to the majors before he is comfortable with his new pitch, would likely mean he would avoid using it, making it largely a useless pitch. Here's my point, I think Meyer's development should trump most other considerations. If it appears he needs more time to get consistent with his mechanics, work on his secondary pitches and whatever else he might need to work on, let it be in the minors. I don't expect him to be a finished product when he is promoted to the majors, but a little more polish might reduce some possible struggles and allow him to work through them a little easier. There are differing thoughts on this, some people even major league organizations, often want to get prospects to the majors as quickly as possible. The thought seems to be that nearly everyone will struggle with the majors to one degree or other, so get them to the majors and let them work it out. I believe that route can sometimes actually hold back development. A prospect will try to do what has always worked, and maybe reluctant to try things that will eventually make him a better player. As I suggested above, the minors should be about trying new things in a less demanding environment. Development takes a back seat to performance at the major league level. I have no idea when Meyer should be promoted to the majors. Right now, both Darnell and May have pitched better than Meyer if you look at their total performance so far, not just one game. So it isn't like Meyer has established that he is for sure, no doubt about it, reaady for the majors or even if he is the one who should be promoted. What I think will happen is that when Meyer(and probably May or Darnell as well) show enough in AAA the Twins will find a way to get them to the majors. Maybe he or they will spend some time in the bullpen. More likely, the Twins will open a spot in the rotation, if it doesn't open itself thru poor performance.

Good article. I haven't seen much of Hughes. Working during the day, means that his last outing was really the first time I watched him pitch this spring. Unfortunately, despite his good SO rates, his decent walk rates, and generally OK hit rates, I think the last outing was sort of a demonstration of why he has been pretty much a back of the rotation starter the last 3 years. He has one major league pitch, his fastball. It is a good one, he's got good velocity and some good late movement, at least some of the time. But his curveball, is not special. He can throw it for strikes, but you can see why he doesn't dare use it very often. I really liked his fastball at times. Striking out Baptista on 3 fastballs was impressive. Especially the last one. Nobody is going to hit a fastball, up and moving in on your hands like that. Unfortunately, it wasn't a strike, if Baptista doesn't swing, its a ball. That is sort of the problem with Hughes fastball. He can throw down and away sometimes, and it is a good pitch, or he can throw it up and out of the strike zone and it is a good pitch. But if the batter lays off those pitches, most of them will be balls. If he gets too much of the strike zone, good hitters are going to hit his fastball, often quite hard. That is what happened in the 6th inning. I am not a pitching coach, or even good at what Parker does here, but Hughes really looks like he needs another effective pitch. You can see why the Yankees wanted him to work on his slider. He needs a slider, or a good changeup, or maybe a splitfinger. Something that looks more like his fastball out of his hand, but is slower and dips down. Maybe he has this pitch and it will show up more as the season goes along. But, right now he looks like a back of the rotation starter to me.

Since the Twins spent quite a bit of money on starting pitching, many people expect that the starting pitching will be much better than last year. That may happen, but largely what the Twins have is a collection of mid-rotation arms. Gibson maybe an exception to that, but he is inexperienced and it is probably too soon to be sure he is any better than that. Mid-rotation arms are generally very inconsistent. That is why they are mid-rotation arms. They are inconsistent from season to season, and often inconsistent from start to start. Eventually, if they have no injury problems, this collection of mid-rotation arms will likely put up mid-rotation stats. But, they will get there inconsistently. A bad start, a good start. A few good starts, a few bad starts. Maybe a stretch of good starts, maybe a stretch of bad starts. What we all hope will happen, is that some of them will be replaced by guys with higher ceilings. Like Meyer and perhaps May. And eventually perhaps others from the farm system. The Twins can afford to eat salary, if necessary. I really don't expect any of the 4 free agent signings to ever become "trade bait". Largely, the Twins overpaid each one of them, in order to upgrade their starting pitching. It is wishful thinking that any of them will suddenly become highly desirable trade targets. The bullpen situation is a bit more hopeful. Most of the bullpen guys are coming off good seasons, almost none are expensive, and there is a decent group of replacement arms at AA and AAA. I actually think the pitching will get better as we go along. It is just best to remember that what the Twins have is not an elite group and there will be a lot of ups and downs with these guys.

Or, alternatively, you keep him around until you actually have someone who can replace his production. It isn't like he is all that old. It is entirely possible that he can be a productive DH for a few years, at least.

Herrmann doesn't really do a lot for me, but he is likely the best choice, right now. I doubt if you want to add Parmelee or Mastroianni, to the 40 man roster right yet. They have to earn it. Plus you still have the same problem of sending Parmelee down that you did this spring. The Twins roster is inperfect, we know that, and the depth is less than compelling. Still, they have showed more offense than most of us expected. I think the pitching will come around, so I am still optimistic, a bit, about this team.

It is clear you don't care for Florimon, but come on, it is clear that Solarte is not a major league shortstop. These kind of comparsions are counter productive. Maybe the Twins should be looking harder for an upgrade at shortstop, but Solarte isn't it and you know it. He never had a chance to be a starting major league shortstop. A useful utility man, perhaps. I suspect he is just a different version of Bernier or Beresford. Playing him everyday will likely expose his flaws. 2 organizations (not just the Twins) have let him move on by not placing him on the 40 man roster. Maybe he figured it out, matured or just realized what his glove was for. More likely he is what the Twins and Rangers thought he was, nice organizational depth-borderline major league utility man.

You do realize the Twins won? If anything the Cleveland pitching was worse than the Twins, they couldn't throw any strikes. It is probably a little early to write "sky is falling" articles. Especially since the Twins are 3 and 3. Let's wait a couple of weeks, maybe after the weather settles a bit, then you can write about how the sky is falling.

I agree, it is too early to be overly concerned about Pinto's playing time. I also think however, that all this watching from the bench and learning from Steinbach is mostly baloney. The way he will learn to call a major league game is getting out and calling a major league game, making mistakes, and then going over them with the pitchers and Steinbach. I also think as a pretty young player, that he will need more than 2 games a week to keep him batting sharp. I might be wrong about that, however.

I am looking forward to the season. I am not sure what to expect, but I believe this team will be better than many believe, given a reasonable amount of good health. The pitching will be OK, especially compared to the last few seasons. The offense may find itself when they aren't behind 4 to 0 in the 2nd inning, game after game. Arcia, Plouffe, Dozier, Pinto, and Hicks could/should be better this year. There is no need to expect the worst possible outcome, yet. Seth is probably right, the setbacks to Sano, Rosario, and even Buxton have probably killed a bit of the enthusiam for the Twins this year. What I want to see is some progress in the young players that will be in the majors this year and also some large progress with the hopefully very talented minor leaguers who could help in a year or two or three.

Actually Puckett, Hrbek, Gladden and others were pretty famous for their party ways, you do not have to be a Twins insider to be aware of it. Gladden is pretty open about it on broadcasts, not giving details usually, but the general behavior of team in the clubhouse and post game antics. I am not sure that any of that should have much to do with judging a player as a player. The only thing I ever wondered about that group of players is if they would of perhaps trained as hard as they partied, if it would have lengthened some of their careers or kept them healthier during them. I think Mauer is a great player. I hope moving to 1B will keep him healthier and maybe we see more consistent production and just more games from him. Comparing him to Puckett, well they are entirely different players. They were and are both great, that is all I care about.

Rather than Mauer batting 2nd, I would prefer to see Hicks and Dozier in the 1st 2 spots, at least as the season goes along. I like Mauer in the 3rd spot, if you have somebody to hit in front of him. I don't know what to expect from Willingham and Kubel, but you hope they get off to decent starts so the younger guys can bat lower in the lineup during early part of the season. Maybe Arcia can bat 3rd or 4th eventually, but he needs to lower the SO rate, maybe make a little better contact. He doesn't have to hit or try to hit home runs all the time. The key is still the young guys, they should eventually lengthen the number of productive bats in the lineup, maybe even forcing Willingham and Kubel lower down or out of the lineup entirely.