mlhouse

Serioulsy, only the Twins organization would be sending Romero down. Young pitchers are going to have their ups and their downs and you need to stick with them. If this organization is not going to have patience with their younger players, instead running with mediocre older veterans, we are never going to get out of this rut of losing.

One of the problems with the Twins offense going on several years is that Brian Dozier should never have been the leadoff hitter. Joe Mauer should have been. Dozier should have hit 3rd with Sano (assuming hitting well) 4th. You put your best OBP player at the top of the lineup. YOu put a guy like Dozier with good power but mediocre OBP and high K rate 3rd. Your high OBP slugger hits 4th. Bill James has taught from Day 1 of Sabermetrics, the key to scoring runs is getting guys on base. Putting Dozier at the top of the lineup was always a mistake.

I think if you gave Molitor a talented team of veteran players he would be a very good manager. I think the real problem with having Molitor as the manager is that he is not a rebuilding guy. We need someone who can patiently work with the younger players, accept their mistakes and work with them to correct, and accept the ensuing losses. That the Twins have not committed to that manager and that rebuilding philosophy is why we are where we are today.

The other problem is that Busenitz and even John Curtiss are not exactly spring chickens either. Busenitz is 27 years old and Curtiss 25. IF they are not ready now, when will they ever be? WHile I will give the front office the fact that they get to watch them way more closely than we do, I think you need to give them more of a chance than what they have been given. You have to commit to these younger players. Let them get the appearances and innings. Maybe it will cost you a game here or there. But they have not given Curtiss any chance and I would argue that they have not given Busenitz a complete chance. We can pretend we are contenders all we want, but this team isn't. The only reason there is a glimmer of hope is that we play in the crappiest division in baseball. The AL Central division leader would be 2.5 games behind the next worse division leader and is 8 games behind the nearest wild card team. ANd even if we are contending, the other fact is Matt Belisle is not going to make us more of a contender and the cost of this is delaying the development and evaluation of prospects like Busenitz (at his age his prospect status is questionable) and Curtiss.

Only in the Twins organization would a prospect like Gordon been returned back to AA and then not have been called up by now. Anyone who thinks that bringin up a non-entity like 33 year old Gregorio Petit over Gordon was a good idea is fooling themselves. It is completely unjustifiable. I get that the Twins want to pretend like they are contenders, but they aren't. I get that Gordon might have some growing pains both at the plate and on the field. But the other fact is he cannot do much worse than Petit and Adrianza.

1. Minor league games as a measure is meaningless in Buxton's case because he missed so much time being injured. 2. Unlike Buxton and Rooker Aaron Judge did not play minor league baseball in his draft year, 2013. 3. Aaron Judge played was promoted to the majors in 2.5 years of minor league baseball. That is a full year less than Buxton and will almost certainly be less than Rooker. Aaron Judge is only 1.5 years older than Buxton. 4. WIth respect to Rooker, Rooker was a college senior when he was drafted. For him to be succesful he needs to rush through the minors. 5. The other aspect that you miss, is that the Yankees are a competitive team. The last time they had a sub 500 season was 1992 and Byron Buxton and Brent Rooker were not even born. For them to accelerate their prospects to the major league level and put them into a team that is competitive is a lot different than a team that is losing 95+ games on a consistent basis.

Hindsight bias? I have been saying this for years on this forum. To rebuild you need to get your prospects up from the minors and develop them at the major league baseball level. Some will be successful. Some will fail. The Twins have not done this, slowly moving players up the levels of the minor leagues. Compare how the Yankees moved Aaron Judge through their system. Drafted in 2013, he debuted in 2014 moving from A to A+. In 2015 he started in AA and moved to AAA. In 2016 he started in AAA and then was called up. IN 2017 he hits 52 major league home runs. If Judge was a Twins minor league player he would have spent 2013 in Cedar Rapids. Then 2014 in Ft Myers, maybe getting a late season call up to AA. Then 2015 back in Ft Myers because you know, all the ball mashing he was doing just wasn't proof enough but then they would convince themselves he is ready for AA. 2016 AA. 2017 probably back in AA but AAA bound once one of the 30 year old journeymen we had there moved up to the major league levels. THEN, maybe he would be brought up sometime in 2017-2018 range because hey, we get one more year of control then, right?

No, I have not mentioned Romero being shafted. The people who have been shafted are Twins fans that have had to put up with a miserable product while they trot out the likes of Matt Belisle, Dilon Gee, Buddy Boshers, Craig Breslow, Nik Turley, Drew Rucinski, Tim Melville, Nick Tepsech, and Chris Heston. Yet, it took them half the year to get perhaps their most effective reliever up to the team, Trevor Hildenberger, they declined to give players like Luke Bard a chance, and kept their most promising pitchers in the minors. While I get that it perhaps it is best to be cautious when you have other quality alternatives and a consistent winning record, but the Twins do not have that.

The evidence conclusively demonstrates that Romero should have been on the opening day roster from day one with a regular rotation spot, not just as a fifth starter. Only in the Twins organization is leaving players in the minors so you get "an extra year of control" the dominating factor. It is almost as if we want these players to fail rather than have to eventually pay them. Even though this organization has been absolutely terrible for almost a decade we make our prospects work through every level of the minors and often make them repeat levels despite their success. A player like Mitch Garver is still officially a rookie despite being 27 years old and the team not having much talent at catcher through those seasons Garver was in the minors. The team prefers 30+ year old no hit journey men than developing their own prospects for the long run.

LOL! Ok. WHile I will state taht there is a very probable chance that Romero will come back to earth and perhaps will go through a stretch were he will really struggle, the FO wanted Phil Hughes and others on the pitching staff instead of Romero. And the sad part is that it is so obvious of a mistake that I cannot believe you are defending it. IF you bring Romero, a MUCH BETTER PITCHER WITH UPSIDE, north instead of Hughes we would be a better team from the beginning and we might be getting Romero's growing pains out fo the way sooner rather than later. Instead, the club decided a has been would be in their rotation instead of a developing prospect. Listen, you can make excuses for the FO all you want, the results speak for themselves. IF you cannot admit they were wrong then you just are not looking at reality.

I get the argument about Garver, but lets face it. He is already 27 years old. AS a college draft pick he did a draft year at Rookie, a full year of A, A+, AA, and AAA. Even though he has been a relatively successful minor league hitter the Twins have not shown any hurry in bringing him up, only giving him a late season call up last year. Using your comparison, JOhn Ryan Murphy reached the major leagues at 22 despite not being as successful of a hitter. And while Murphy was a high school draft choice so that may have given him a bit of a head start, he also was in a system of a major league team that was winning so they had a much better talent level on their roster. The Twins should have moved Garver up to the major league level full time 2 years ago. We were a rebuilding organization and giving a guy like Garver the opportunity to get experience, develop at the big league level, and either find success or fail was important.

It isn't because if the front office had its way Romero would still be in AAA. HE isn't here because it was the choice of the FO, he is here because of injuries to the pitchers they chose to begin the season on the active 25.

Sure. But including Mauer and Dozier in the list is a bit misleading since they are now both over 30 and Mauer probably in his last year of his career. Second, when you consider how poorly this team has performed over the past 7 seasons that is the prosepcts this team has delivered to the big league team? If you look at the pitching staff it is the same story. Berrios, Gibson, Hildenberger, and Taylor Rogers. And of those 4 only Berrios is under the age of 25. Think about that. We have suffered through 95-100+ loss seasons and the only real pitching prospect that has been delivered is Berrios. Oh, sure there is Fernando Romero. He is under 25 but lets face it. If the front office had its way he would still be in Rochester. There probably just wasn't a retread on waivers they could find. Sure, I get that eventually his hot start might balance out when he goes thorugh the league a second time but he has demonstrated he has MLB stuff RIGHT NOW. Gonsalves and Wade are two players that should be up right now. Move Lynn to the BP until he gets his stuff working again and send LaMarre back to the minors were he belongs.

Because this is how the Twins organization operates. They demonstrate very little desire to develop their own prospects. They would rather have a bunch of cast offs from other teams on the 40 and 25, than bring up their own players from within. Look at Lamonte Wade's minor league statistics and compare that to Jake Cave's. Yet, it is Cave that is on the 40 man roster and was called up to the big leagues while Wade repeats AA.

If Romero is pitching even close to as effective as he is when Santana returns and htey remove him from the rotation and/or send him back to the minors I am no longer going to be a fan of this team. Just leave him in the rotation. Let him go through a complete MLB season as a starting pitcher. If he takes some lumps down the line, then that is the right of passage for young pitchers. The person he replaces in the rotation is obvious: Lance Lynn. I get we paid him $12 million, but he is only on a one year contract and he has been terrible. Let him spot any starts that need to be spotted and pitch in long relief. Maybe somewhere he gets back to his former level, but I am not going to remove Romero from the rotation to find it. He is only here for one season anyways.

Where is Ryley Widell?

This is a great analysis and something that Twins Daily does really well. Great job. He does remind me a bit of Scott Erickson and I think he is going to have to learn from Erickson's experience. When Erickson came up in 1990 he was virtually unhittable. If you look at the last half of 1990 and the first half of 1991, his first full year he had 20 wins and an ERA under 2. His 2-seam fast ball was completely destructive and it had the movement similar to Romero's. Hitters flailed away at it. But, in the 2nd half of 1991 Erickson wasn't very effective. HE had a ERA of 5.20 and as his 2.06 K/W ratio fell to 0.97. Two things happened in the 2nd half of 1991 and in my opinion one of the biggest changes is that hitters stopped swinging at Erickson's 2-seam and sliders that were not strikes. Instead of getting ahead on counts from swing and misses, the batters themselves got ahead in the count and forced Erickson to come back with his less effective 4-seam fast ball. Over time this increased his pitch counts and Erickson threw an inordinate number of innings. IN 1990 between AA andMLB he threw 224 innings. From 1991 - 1993 he threw more than 200 innings a season for the Twins, just 144 in an injury shortened 1994 then 196 in 1995 when he was traded to Baltimore. His last couple seasons with the Twins he was a below average pitcher with ERA+ in the 80s. He had a couple decent seasons with Baltimore but was inconsistent with the exception of being an innings eater, pitching 220 or more innings or more for 4 straight seasons, including a 251 inning season in 1998. This isn't meant to be a negative, just that a pitcher that throws like Romero and generates that much movement needs to be able to also pitch smart. You arent always going to fool the hitters. Santana and Liriano could do this because they had the change up they could throw for strikes. Romero needs to develop that into a more effective pitch because the next time through these teams it is less likely they will be swinging at so many pitches that are so far out of the zone.

This is another portrait of the idiotic Twins prospect management. They are so conservative and cautious, almost wanting our prospects to fail somewhere, that they only reluctantly call them up. But guess what...... sometimes the guys you are sitting on are much better than the mediocrity that they have trotted out. I doubt Romero is going to go through the rest of the season without giving up a run, and I bet he will have some games were he doesn't pitch well. But the Twins need to just stick with him and let him develop at the MLB level. That is were he can iron out any problems. Sending him back to the minors were he has already dominated does nothing.

Oh, come on. He clearly needs to go back to Chattanooga for a spell and then go up and down from Rochester to MN. He is only 23 so 6 more years of minor league success won't hurt him.

The Twins need to call up Lamonte Ward to the big leagues. He is a professional hitter, a solid lead off man who can get on base yet has some pop to his bat, and a reasonable fielding outfielder. As a college draft pick, Ward is already 24 years old and the Twins decided he needed to return to Chatanooga where he played full time in 2017 and had an OPS of 805. This is typical of the Twins, making players who have already successfully played at a level repeat, all while AAA is stocked with old, never has been players and we have a 29 year old backup OF that has not had a major league extra base hit. I have been saying this for 5 years and two organizational management groups: Why are the TWins so reluctant to promote their own minor league prospects?

Do you realize that of the 9 non-pitching starters for the Rochester Red Wings, not a single player was drafted by the Twins. Only one of these players, Kennys Vargas developed from the Twins organization and he was released earlier this year. And the average age of these 9 is 28. FOr a team that has sucked so bad over the past several years, why do we have a bunch of cast offs in AAA and not our own prospects?

Please. Romero isn't 29 years old and waived by at least two other major league organizations. He obviously needs to go back to the minors for more seasoning.

A 33 year old SS with a career .643 major league OPS is really going to make an impact.

I have been highly critical of the way that the Twins management, both the previous administration and the current, have developed this team. I get that the 2018 Twins have had some bad luck with injury after inury, but as I stated last season putting a push to a one game wild card appearance over development was a mistake. Coming off a 103 loss season the priority should have been getting young players into positions to play and develop at the major league level. Romero and Gonsalves should have made their major league debuts LAST season and started with the big league team as starters this season. Trevor Hildenberger should have been kept, and John Curtiss, Luke Bard, and several other pitchers been cycled through trying to get the core of the rotation and relief staff established. But we got some wins and made it to the wild card playoff game so then we thought we were a contender and signed a bunch of mediocre veterans that have not panned out to date, and now we are almost 1/5 through the season and we are again on pace for 100 losses, many of our top prospects have not been tested, and most of our good young players are on the IR. What does that mean? We have a lot more "rebuilding" ahead of us. I am a Twins fan and teams have turned it around duing the season. I hope they do and we have a great season. There still is time and teams have turned around worse starts to the season. I just think we have botched the rebuilding path going on a 8 years now.

Don't let anyone fool you, the financial reasons were why teh Twins would not draft Prior. There is strong argument for selecting Mauer, including the fact he was a Minnesotan but I doubt the Twins really considered Prior.