jmlease1

Looks like the wrong graph posted; bullpen useage is not showing, it's a repeat of the leverage index. Berrios wasn't sharp but fought through it. Duffey didn't get a couple of calls he wanted and it made for a tough inning...but he hacked through it. Those are good learning experiences for young pitchers. Buxton's approach at the plate right now, shortening his swing, leaving the leg kick at home, and making good hard contact with the ball is having really nice results. I'd like to see him stick to this for a solid month without tinkering and see where he stands at the end of July.

The potential reinforcements rising up in the system in the bullpen are why you don't trade a good prospect for MLB bullpen help. Yes, the back end of the bullpen has really struggled this year, but there's cheap, young, talented options that are close. Unfortunately, that doesn't fix the rotation, which still needs significant work but we seem to be taking the smart approach. I hope Park can get it figured out in AAA and be a contender for the DH spot next year. Granite has to be a part of the OF next season. A mix-n-match outfield of Buxton, Granite, Kepler, and Rosario would be stellar defensively and certainly has the talent to be a plus unit offensively as well. Imagine the speed and fun you'd have with Buxton & Granite hitting 1-2!

Meija does have a future, but he needs to get deeper into games. It's driving me nuts to look at his pitch count in the 3rd or 4th inning and always think "no way does he get through 6". (and it's even worse with Jack "Grumpy Old Man" Morris on color, bitching about how they didn't need pitch counts back in the day and oblique strains are just a made up injury for modern times because the players just aren't what they used to be) Mauer's defense really has turned into something pretty remarkable. He's making athletic plays, smart decisions, and is just so consistent over there in receiving the ball. It's got to make it easier on Sano, Polanco, Escobar, and Dozier fielding the ball knowing that Mauer is there for them if they can just get the ball over.

I would move Jorge up to AAA fairly soon and see how he does pounding the strike zone against a little more advanced hitters and keep him in the mix to be pulled up to the MLB level should he stay effective and we continue to have collapses in the rotation. The concern on him is going to be whether his stuff will play against the higher levels of competition, so it's probably going to be a good idea to see if he can move up a level before testing him at MLB. Romero is a guy whose stuff I love, but I'd like to see him get a better handle on a third pitch, and AA is a reasonable place to do it. Getting him through a full minor league season and increasing his innings is also a good goal for someone like him so he'll be ready to operate at AAA next season and maybe compete for a MLB job. Until he gets a third pitch, he's Tyler Duffey and I'd like for him to be a starter instead of a bullpen guy. Gonsalves is the guy I really like, but the health worries me. He lost some development time this year and I do not want to blow out his damn shoulder by pressing too hard. I'm more on the patience approach with these guys. Keep them moving along, but I'm not seeing a compelling reason for their development to be super-accelerated by promoting them directly from AA this season.

Breslow has been fine, but he's limited at this point and shouldn't be counted as one of your top 4-5 guys. Belisle is starting to look cooked and if he can't pull it together and start yanking that WHIP down, he should be a candidate to move on from. The injuries to May, Burdi, and Chargois really hurt the bullpen depth. A key guy gone and two of the better prospects for high-end reinforcements wiped out sets you back, there's no question. But if Hughes and Hildenberger can provide quality outings in high leverage situations it could settle things down without the need to for outside help. I'm not saying they shouldn't consider it, but it's still not an area I want to invest much in. There's a lot of help on the way if people can get healthy or stay on the development path: May, Jay, Chargois, Burdi, Bard, and Curtiss would all be good options to pair with Kintzler, Rogers, and Duffy. The bigger issue remains in the rotation. The bullpen gets better/stronger when we have starters getting deeper into the game and right now we have too many guys who are sitting at 90+ pitches in the 5th. this team badly needs a 3rd starter to step up with Santana and Berrios, who are the only guys right now I feel confident about getting to the 7th on a fairly consistent basis.

I think this is key. The role of "closer" has been overrated for so many years in terms of its importance to having a successful bullpen. Kintzler appears to be steady and consistent, which may in fact be the most important thing for that role, rather than overpowering stuff. With our defense showing a marked improvement from a year ago, his style of pitching plays very well when starting an inning and he's performing very well in the role. Right now I'm happy with Kintzler, Duffey, and Rogers in the pen. I'm ok with Breslow & Boshers, but they really need Hildenberger to be ready and capable, Pressly to find his form and live up to his stuff, or Belisle to get it together & hope that his FIP is a better indicator of what he has left. One of those three has got to step up and be someone to be counted on in higher leverage situations and soon. Hughes may lend some help, but it's looking more likely that Chargois is going the way of Burdi, which is a real shame. And it means that the Twins will really need someone to get it together or make a trade to support the bullpen if they want to stay in contention.

That was LaTroy Hawkins. Who was amusing me all day by calling Dick Bremer "Richard" the entire broadcast, just like Tom Kelly always does. Brutal game behind the plate by Vanover; when Bremer is hammering you, you know you're botching a lot of calls and doing them badly.

I probably wouldn't rate Kirilioff this high either, despite his fine early performance at Elizabethon; while he has all the potential in the world, it really is a major ijury and there's not enough track record yet to feel confident that he'll bounce back all the way...because we don't know what that is yet. But he's still a nice hitting prospect. Really excited about Nick Gordon and I agree with his ranking as the number one prospect. He's playing and developing exactly like you'd hope right now, and with Polanco doing fine at SS right now there's no need to rush his development. That said, it certainly would make trading Dozier much less painful if he keeps pushing forward like this and ends in Rochester (sliding Polanco to 2B). I would also love to have a LHP option like Gonsalves in our rotation, and I'm not worried about the velocity, I'm worried about his shoulder. I hope we have the best of the best keeping an eye on that. If it'll keep him healthy, bring in an ancient mystic from China, seal him off in a hyperbaric chamber between starts, spend his offseason in suspended animation...

We just hired a new President of Baseball Operations and General Manager what--six months ago? You're talking like it's the same leadership making decisions about things now that was making decisions over the past 6 years. And despite your doom & gloom...this team has right now a winning record! Maybe the right move is to blow it up and deal Dozier, Santana, Kintzler, etc but now is NOT the time to do it: no one is buying yet, so there's no market and selling off the team while you have a winning record torpedoes attendance. So not only would you get a poor return you'd also cost the team millions in revenue and more in negative PR? That would be awful management. Falvey & Co. deserve more than 6 months to get things redone around here. Yeesh. Breslow is overall pitching fine, so dumping him just to open up a 40-man spot is silly, but there are some other options if space of the 40-man is the issue. the real question is: who is ready to step up from the minors in the 'pen? Not sure it's clear with Chargois and Burdi hurt.

ooof, the injuries! I'm a fan of both Burdi and Chargois, so it really stinks seeing them fall just as they were getting close. Here's hoping for rapid and full recoveries!

Time to move on from Belisle, he's been awful. Pressly is worth giving more rope to. It's a shame that the injury bug has hit in the minors; I wasn't terribly concerned about the bullpen this year, despire there being some weaknesses, because it looked like there were several guys in the minors who were ready to get a long look. But with Chargois on the DL and Burdi done for this year and who knows how long after things have thinned out. That's too bad. I actually really like Kintzler as the "closer", because there really shouldn't be anything all that special about pitching the 9th with a lead and the bases empty, which is how most closers are used. Having Kintzler in that role allows potentially better arms to be pitching in higher leverage situations in the 6-8th innings. Very happy to see Mauer playing so well in May. He was pretty unlucky in April and it's nice to see things turn his way. Would love for him to have a hot summer as well, with judicious rest to keep him cooking; he's a really nice player to have hitting in front of Sano.

This. Without the context assigned with it, RBI totals don't really tell you much about the hitter. Mauer's greatest skill as a hitter has been in avoiding outs. During his prime, he was a guy who got a lot of hits and plenty of walks, making him a perfect guy to hit ahead of hitters with power. Having Mauer hit ahead of Morneau, Cuddyer, and Hunter was ideal. The RBI crowd seems to get offended when Mauer takes a walk with runners on base, especially late in the game with the Twins behind. I've actually heard anti-sabermetrics "experts" insist that a "real star" would expand their strike zone and take less pitches. Seems to me to be a counter-productive and fundamentally selfish tactic...and the stats prove it out. I'm glad to see Mauer getting the results in May his April performance should have seen. Luck usually evens out and Mauer's approach is sound. Walks and hard-hit balls have been playing very well for this Twins team and if Mauer can avoid prolonged slumps this season he'll be a real asset. Is he ever going to be "worth" $23M again? doubtful at 1B, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have value and his contract isn't what's been holding this team back the last few years. It's also really nice to see how good his D has gotten. He's gone from just another guy to someone adding real value and directing traffic while making tough plays out there. His consistent play receiving the ball has to be helping Sano and Polanco in the field.

This. He should have called "trust your stuff" and people probably would have been "hell, yeah! Liriano (Berrios) has great stuff!" Ervin Santana's performance on Friday was the really fun one for me. He was clearly struggling with his command, just unable to locate his pitches precisely enough and fought his way through for another impressive start. Great work by a veteran.

Your wish is granted. Twins sent him down after he botched another start. It's the right move. Maybe he gets things straightened out and can come back up and eat some innings, but right now he's awful and other guys are more deserving. I think this is step one towards moving on from Kyle Gibson, who I strongly suspect will NOT be offered arbitration again. It's too bad, because when he's been on he's delightful to watch. But at best he's putting that together 1 out of 3 starts. In the end, Kyle Gibson may just be a AAAA pitcher.

Gibson is without a doubt the most frustrating tease we have in the rotation. He'll have these terrible outings where he can't get through 6 innings, gives up 4 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks and isn't throwing strikes...and then a week later he'll go 8 and only give up 1 run on 2 hits with 1 walk. (these are actual lines for last year in July against Texas and Boston) You see him in the Boston game and you think about what could be and it drives you nuts when he turns in the next two starts of that are like the Texas game. He's just not consistent, and while I've advocated for him for a long time, we've reached the end of the line on him. It's almost certainly time to move on. The tease has made us think that he will someday figure it out, but the reality is he's probably just another guy and he's just not worth paying $3M for, and certainly not giving an arbitration raise to.

And in 2015 Mauer's BABiP was basically a career low, 35 points below his career average. When that happens, it usually means one of two things: injury or bad luck. In this case, we may have both. Mauer is still young enough to bounce back and have another stretch of strong seasons and if he puts together a few more seasons like 2012 & 2013 we should be pretty happy Twins fans.

I have to say I'm not terribly worried about the rotation next season unless pitchers get jobs based on scholarship (Nolasco!). Santana got the job done (solid July, erratic Aug, excellent Sept) once he was back from suspension, Gibson had a nice, solid season and should have a job locked up, Hughes regressed but still will be a quality pitcher. The next two up should be Duffey and May based on performance. Berrios is a guy I'm looking forward to seeing, but I'm not handing him a spot. He'll get his chance when someone inevitably gets hurt. Nolasco I'd move to the 'pen. Maybe he could stay healthy there with a reduced innings workload and then we don't have to worry about whether he can get out of the 5th inning. Milone is just another guy: decent, but limited upside. But the options are there in the rotation: we can move on from Pelfrey and should have a solid rotation that can give the team a chance to win every night. The bullpen needs a little work: there weren't enough reliable arms this season, but guess what? easiest thing to turn around fast is a bullpen. Here's the lineup concerns: regression and catcher. Is Rosario going to improve or regress? (he really could go either way. the OPB was terrible and he needs to control the strike zone better. his BABIP was well above average (.332), which could pull his BA down if that falls off. but he's also got the tools to improve his OBP and the speed to keep the BABIP high) Will Sano take the next step and cut down the K's or is he going to be a late-career Adam Dunn for a while as he figures it out? Does Hicks keep improving or does he take a step back (again)? Catcher's a black hole right now: Suzuki isn't getting it done on offense or defense (admittedly, Kurt had some very bad luck this season, but it pushed him back towards career norms) Will Mauer return to form? at least a little? It's possible...there's so much we don't know about concussions. But it's also possible that he's lost just enough bat speed that this is who he is now: average and overpaid.

Duffey has pitched well enough that someone like Nolasco needs to out-pitch him to beat him out for a spot in the rotation. While most organizations wouldn't put a guy making a gazillion dollars into a long-relief role in the pen...the Twins would be smart to do it with Nolasco. Duffey is looking like the better pitcher right now, who still has upside. Nolasco is a bad contract that they need to find some value from. Why not move him into the pen where he might stay healthy? Let a guy like Duffey keep piling up innings and bending knees with the Uncle Charlie. Right now, the rotation for next season should be: Hughes, Gibson, Santana, Duffey and either Milone/May/Berrios. Sorry, Ricky: Duffey has passed you.

Rosario is a real future is he learns to control the strike zone. He's got the skills to do it, but he needs to find the discipline. He's not going to have long-term success with an OBP under .300. But his defense has been really fun to watch (last night's botch for a "double" not withstanding); it's been a real treat to watch him gun down runners and his range in the corners is exactly what this bunch of fly ball pitchers needs. He's got the track record to suggest he can up the walks at least a little and cut down on the K's, so he should be able to hit enough to hold down an OF spot and the defense makes him a plus player. I think we've got someone locking down a position, which is what we wanted to get out of this season: locking in players for the future.

Duffey's Uncle Charlie is a thing of beauty. I wonder if some of it's effectiveness is because of the emphasis on the slider in today's MLB as a breaking pitch? When you don't see it as often, it's got to be harder to hit a good power curve... I like what we're seeing here. He's still walking a few more people than I'd like (and I'm sure the Twins aren't thrilled either), but the FIP is basically matching the ERA, the peripherals are all good, he's shown an ability to get into the 7th inning, and he's not just doing it against a bunch of weak sisters who have given up for the year. (Sure, Detroit and CWS are dead teams walking, but the Astros and Angels sure aren't) Duffey isn't a lock for the rotation next season, but he absolutely should be higher up on the list than Nolasco or even Milone.

I was opposed to the Nolasco deal at the time, mostly because I just didn't see him as that high value of a player, moving from the NL to the AL and other than eating a lot of innings he'd really only had one particularly good season. But it wasn't a crazy deal...unfortunately he hasn't been healthy. The Suzuki contract was a classic instance of buying high on a guy that the team should have known was going to decline/revert. That's a bad one with some questionable thinking behind it. And it was repeated with Hughes...guy has one excellent season and the team changes course like that's the new normal. Now, I still think the Hughes contract will pay off fine for the team, despite his struggles this year (it's not an outrageous amount for a starting pitcher, his age is good, etc) but it wasn't necessary. Under his old contract he was a massive discount. Now he's a push. As has been said before, Santana's deal is a market one. His suspension was a bad one, but I can't bash the team for it. And we were all pretty happy with his first couple of starts, weren't we? Right now we may just be looking at small sample size issues there, so I'm not panicking on Santana. But it is pretty notable how poorly the top paid players on this roster are playing. (people aren't talking about Torii Hunter in this context either, but he and his $10M contract have fallen off the cliff too.) The Twins need to ensure they don't vest Suzuki's contract for 2017 by playing him too much in 2016 and get out from under it. Nolasco was showing signs of viability before this latest injury disaster (FIP of 2.80, K/9 back up to 7.7) so if he can get healthy he should be fine in the back of the rotation for the next 2 years; possibly over-priced, but not absurd. We don't have to worry too much about his vesting for 2018; if he hits 400 innings over the next 2 seasons after this one a) it'll be a miracle, and a sign that he's actually worth the money. There's no real solution for Mauer except to hope he gets his bat speed back and starts really hitting again. Unless he moves back to catcher...where we need the help... I will say this: all the twins contract decisions, with the exception of Suzuki, make sense in a vacuum. (sorry, doubling the pay of a 30 year-old coming off a season that was better than anything he'd had in the previous 5 was just a mistake. the "all-star" season was a fluke)

Most of the national prognosticators had the Twins clocking in at 70-72 wins, so even if the Twins don't make the playoffs there's a lot of reasons to find success in a season if they can land around .500, especially after so many 90-loss seasons in a row. The additional wins are nice, but we're also finally seeing some prospect development come to fruition. That's where the real success of the season is going to come. The OF looks to have a real future, both offensively and defensively. None of them are perfect yet, but Rosario, Hicks, and Buxton would be a phenomenally good defensive alignment. Hicks and Rosario are both showing they can hit MLB pitching and with Buxton's skill you have to believe he'll adapt as well. Sano has been terrific. Yes, we'll have to watch the K's, but the power is awesome, the patience is there and there's no question his bat plays in a big way. May and Gibson have been developing nicely as pitchers as well. You have to feel confident in them as young parts of the rotation. Finding young players who can actually play is a huge part of the success for this season. And figuring out who can't is a part of it too. We know we don't have answers at SS & C. we know the bullpen needs to be stabilized with more consistent arms. Next year the expectations are going to be higher, and they should. but this season is showing some real growth. Now, about Nolasco...

Dozier is having a terrific season, and it's really nice to see. I was very happy they signed him to a long-term deal this year and spending $18M on him over the next 3 years looks like a steal right now (there's no way he doesn't pull bigger numbers in arbitration). You have to hope some of the young guys in the system look at how he's built himself into an all-star caliber player and follow suit. He's been building in new components of his game every season and now he's a guy every team would want. Kipnis is having a better season right now, but not by all that much. It should be the two of them playing 2B at the all-star game this year. (Pedroia is still great too, however) But that's nice company to be in.

Molitor is showing some creativity and that's good. I think his instincts are to be a little more aggressive than Gardy, and he's a little less rigid in his use of players. It would be good for TR to give him a little more flexibility on the roster with a smaller pitching staff. Let's be honest: there's no real reason for us to carry 12 pitchers, let alone 13.

Why on earth would we trade a borderline all-star under team control? I'm more interested in an extension for Plouffe than trading him. This is a team that's starting to come together towards the end of a major rebuilding effort. That's not the time to start dealing players hitting their primes! Sano is showing he still needs some work, but regardless of when he finally gets here they will find room in the lineup for him and Plouffe. Clearly, no one is established at the DH slot, the team should have a corner OF slot opening up (does anyone really expect Hunter back?) and there's room for someone to backup Mauer at 1B as well to get some ABs. Once you're sure Sano is ready and you still think there's no room for Plouffe, then you can think about dealing him, but we're nowhere near there yet.