jmlease1

Remarkably, the Twins are doing all of this without their top FA signing, Mr Ervin Suspended Santana. But it says a great deal about how much deeper the rotation is this season as opposed to previous years. Guys that would have been slotted in easily as the 4th or 5th starter in previous years wouldn't even be in contention as the next guy up from AAA this year, and that's very encouraging. Would I like a little more star-power at the top of the rotation? Sure, but Hughes has developed into a legitimate #1, and we're finally seeing the improvement and talent from other spots of the rotation. Nolasco clearly has the off-speed stuff to succeed and if he can spot his fastball better and finish off hitters more efficiently going forward, he could finally put up the kind of season we had in mind when we signed him. (he still seems to be tiring right around 90 pitches or so, losing his release point, and there goes the control) Gibson is lowering the BB's, raising up some additional K's and with his GB% he should continue to be a very good innings-eater, especially with the defense improving behind him. May is still figuring some things out, but his last 2 starts have been encouraging, and he's been solid overall. He's giving up a few too many hits right now, but his stuff is good enough to bring that down as he learns how to work batters in MLB. More importantly, he's not walking everyone in sight and he's been a little unlucky so far. Pelfrey is the one who should be the first to go when Santana is ready to come back. He's not part of the long-term future here, his peripherals aren't good, he's clearly going to fall back to earth at some point and be the mediocre pitcher with limited upside he always was. Frankly, I'm hoping he keeps it up to the all-star break and someone desperate for pitching will let up flip him for a prospect, but if not he has to be the guy who heads to the bullpen. But consider this situation in relationship to last season: we're talking about which decent pitcher is going to get bumped from the rotation, as opposed to begging for basic competence. Last season we gave 26 starts to Yohan Pino, Sam Deduno, Anthony Swarzak, Logan Darnell and Kris Johnson. Only one of these guys is even with the franchise any longer (Darnell, who is back in the minors where he belongs), one is out of baseball (Johnson), and of the other three only one is starting in MLB (Deduno) and he's been terrible. And that's not counting the 37 starts handed to Nolasco, Pelfrey, and Milone last season when none of them were any good. This team isn't giving away starts this year, unlike last season. This is why the projections for the Twins being a 70 win team again (before Santana's suspension especially) were foolish. I don't expect them to keep up this pace all year; there are still holes in the lineup and Pelfrey's success is unsustainable. The bullpen still has some issues. But it's amazing what happens when you're not tossing every 3rd start on the scrap heap.

Kepler is a guy who is going to put some pressure on Rosario and Arcia, and again: that's a good thing. While I don't see him ever playing much CF in MLB (especially with Buxton and Hicks around) he could be a plus defender in either corner spot. It wouldn't bother me at all for Kepler to push Arcia to the DH slot and be able to run out an OF of Kepler, Buxton, and Rosario with Hicks as the 4th guy. That crew could run down a lot of balls out there and runners would be a lot more reluctant to take the extra base against those arms. There's a talent flood coming soon as a few spots on this roster, and the Twins are going to have to make the smart/right choices in order to field the best team in the short term and keep the system stocked. It's a good problem to have, but a hard one for the GM. Who gets dealt and when? With Plouffe, Mauer, Sano, Arcia, Vargas, Kepler, Rosario you've got 7 guys for about 5 roster spots.Making the right calls on who to keep and who to move will be critical.

His D has clearly moved into the average to above average range. The mistakes still stick out a little more with him because of his history; when a guy has struggled defensively you tend to notice when they tank one and think "here we go again". He's hitting well and not hurting the team defensively, which is a pretty big asset at 3B. If he continues to improve his D, he's going to make it harder for Sano to push him out of the way at 3B, and that's a good thing. He's a borderline all-star right now, which isn't something I would have thought I would ever say about Plouffe 2-3 years ago. 2012 he was solid at the plate and the Butcher of Cairo in the field. 2013 he was starting to show basic competence in the field, but the hitting fell off. Last year he started to put it all together and he's continued to grow this year. It's really nice to see. Plouffe is reminding me a lot of Corey Koskie, another guy who struggled in the field, but stuck with it, put in the work and made himself a terrific all-around 3B.

Pelfrey is the one I want pushed out of the rotation if anyone gets pushed. His success is the least likely to be sustained and he's also not going to be part of the team's future. (If he's re-signed next season or god forbid given an extension this season, I'm rage-quitting the Twins. That would be a fireable offense for Terry Ryan.) The only thing that makes me hesitate even a little about that is whether it would reduce the team's ability to flip him for, well, anything when Ervin Santana comes back, but I could live with it. Gibson and May are both contenders to be in the rotation for the next several years, so we need to see who they are in sustained time at MLB. Gibson needs to add in a few more Ks and bring down the walks to sustain his success, but a) both things are viable for him, and he's got a track record and the grounders to do it. May has nothing left to prove in AAA but we need to see if he can learn to be more efficient in his early innings finishing off batters and finding ways to get through that 5th & 6th inning to really be a guy they can count on. but he's shown promise this year and is keeping the walks reasonable. Milone is a nice guy and could be useful as the #5 starter this year. It's great having him as depth this season, and forcing guys to compete for spots and not have people there on scholarship. But I don't see him being a long-term part of this rotation, and I don't think he should push May out of the rotation.

ABW's inability to draw walks so far is why clearing out Arcia to make space for him is a foolish idea. Seth is right: the power is absolutely legit. But until he learns to draw some walks he'll get killed against MLB pitching. I'm really rooting for Kepler, who just as he seems to be figuring it out has had injury issues. Here's hoping he continues to build on success. He's got tools and seems to finally be translating them to on-field success. I like his positional flexibility and he looks like a real asset. Thorpe's Tommy John surgery is a real shame, but hopefully he can come back from it. It's a little concerning that it's hit on him so early in his career; does this mean there's a problem in his mechanics that's going to make this a recurring problem? Or force a change that will cause him to lose effectiveness? His youth suggests greater opportunity to come back from the injury, but does it also portend greater injury concerns in the future?

I'm absolutely baffled by the sudden desire to dump Arcia. He's got 30 HR potential, he's young, and he's cheap. Sure, he'd bring a big haul of prospects in return but that's not what the team needs right now. Also, the idea that the team would choose to pay Hunter to DH over keeping Arcia would be a fireable offense. Hunter might have another year left in the tank after this one, but he's not in the long term plans of any team. Arcia certainly should be. If Hicks can show effectiveness from the LH side of the plate, he's going to stick (even if he has a few brain farts in the field or on the basepaths). Arcia just needs to calm down at the plate again and he should be an effective LF. Hunter will get us through this season in RF and Robinson makes for a reasonable 4th OF this year. But the future is an OF rotation of Buxton, Arcia, Hicks, and Rosario. That should be an exciting prospect for a lot of reasons: there should be plenty of offense, even if Arcia stays below average overall it should be a fine defensive alignment, and it's going to be cheap for some time. Rosario should be a great fit as a 4th OF. Look, Arcia isn't great in LF, but he'll be able to get by out there. There's no need to look at moving him to DH any time soon. But frankly, it's a good thing that there are guys in the minors that are putting pressure on people in the majors. That means you have depth to guard against injury. That means you're not promoting guys too early any more out of desperation (Hicks). And it means you can trade assets from a position of strength to keep the minors strong. Arcia isn't going anywhere unless he gets too expensive AND doesn't fit in the OF any longer.

I think we'll see an uptick in K's for Gibson; his current rate looks like the epitome of fluky. The key for him is bringing down the BBs. Despite his terrific GB ratio and ability to keep the ball in the yard, he's not going to sustain his success if he's walking 3+ guys per game. But I think it's likely that he'll up the K's a bit (probably around 5K's per 9) and trim the walks down to the 2.0-2.5 range. That'll be enough to make him a solid starter. Hughes will be fine. I'm a little nervous that so many balls are flying out right now and hope this isn't a regression to the bad old Yankee days, but overall his peripherals are fine and adding Hicks to the OF rotation should help him out a bit too. May has been a bit unlucky so far, but I like his stuff. He needs a bit of rope and more turns in the rotation. He's been doing a solid job in keeping the walks down (his real problem in the minors) and can get the Ks. Being able to call on a guy like him to fill an injury/inability slot instead of turning to guys like Hernandez or some of the other clowns we've trotted out is a really big deal. Nolasco still worries me, but if healthy he should be able to be a solid 4-5 rotation guy, and that's a vast improvement over the disaster of a year ago. He's going to be overpaid in my book, but if he's competent it's a huge improvement. Pelfrey is the one whose success seems least sustainable to me, but he's been good so far. I'm hoping he can hold it together until Santana returns and then can get flipped to a contender for a prospect from someone who thinks he'll hold it together for the rest of the year. He's not part of the future, so I don't want him pushing May out of the rotation when Santana comes back. The real kicker for the Twins (and something the national pundits keep forgetting when they mock our rotation) is how much growth the Twins rotation had to give between the last 2 years and basic competence. and getting to that basic competence really can get the Twins a big leap, a bigger one that most people are thinking of. The offense is already good. Not elite, but above average and capable. match that with a competent starting staff and things get interesting pretty quickly.

I think it's time for Hicks. I've seen enough of Schafer to be convinced he's not going to suddenly start raking enough to get his triple slash line up to something adequate any time soon if ever. He's just not that good. At best, he's a 4th OF and we already have one of those guys in Shane Robinson (who is significantly outplaying him, albeit in a much smaller role). But I won't be shocked, or even all that outraged if the team waits to see where Arcia is at before they make a major roster move. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they bring up Hicks at the same time they bring back Arcia and send Rosario back down to work on some things. The Twins will need to see what Hicks can do in MLB for an extended period soon. This is the make-or-break year for him, with his options running out and Buxton knocking on the door. But it's also a good year for the team to give him a real run again: Schafer is an easy candidate to relegate (I can't see anyone claiming him), Hicks is killing it in AAA right now, and team expectations are still low. If he can put up an OPS of 725-750 with plus defense and positional flexibility to play all three OF slots he'll be a real asset to the franchise for years to come, regardless of what happens with Buxton, Arcia, or Rosario. Need to find out soon. If he keep hitting like this and hasn't made the roster by June 1, the team is making a significant mistake. It's ok if he stays down another week or so, but if this drags on 2-3 weeks then their either doing it wrong or there's something else going on here that they're not telling us.

Hopefully he can hold it together long enough for the Twins to deal him for something worthwhile when Santana comes back.

I think team chemistry and leadership can have a greater impact in basketball than baseball; one of the most notable things about KG's return was how much better and energetic the Wolves looked on defense, with KG calling out rotations, etc. That's an impact that doesn't show up in individual stats that's still really important. The sum becoming greater than the parts is something that is much more of a basketball thing than baseball, where player interaction and combination is lessened. (how much impact can Torii Hunter have on the infield?) That said, I'm fine with bringing in Torii as well, as long as the expectations aren't out of control. Having an experienced player-mentor for young OFs like Arcia & Hicks isn't a bad thing at all to help them through the daily struggles of being an MLB player. Someone on the field who can help them stay positioned correctly. Someone with credibility to give advice and constructive criticism. Since he should be able to still hit and contribute on the field, it can work. He'll be a marketing plus. In the end, I expect KG to have a greater effect on the on-court product of the Wolves than Torii to have on the Twins, despite Torii possibly having more left in the tank as a player. But the things KG brings to the table are things the Wolves need even more right now and the intangibles are greater in basketball than football. But it doesn't mean bringing in Torii was a bad call, especially since the price was only one year of not-unreasonable money.

I like Berrios a ton. We'll see how his secondary stuff continues to develop; if he continues to improve his change and curve he can be really really good. I agree with Seth; look for him to arrive in 2016 unless things go badly for the rotation AND he's dominating. No need to add him to the 40-man early while they're still working on getting his innings up towards 170 or so and working on his secondary pitches. I'm always a little confused by conversations about a "#1" pitcher. How are we defining a #1? It seems like a lot of the reports that place Berrios' ceiling as a #2-#3 act like a #1 pitcher is a true ace, one of the top 10 pitchers in MLB or something. That doesn't seem right to me.

I feel like May is a slight favorite to win the job, but realistically it should come down to him or Milone. If May has control issues, Meyer's are still more significant and his delivery just isn't as repeatable yet. It will be interesting to see if May has made any progress since last season.

I have zero problem with the Twins buying out his arbitration years and a year or 2 of free agency. The basic form is, Dozier gets the security of a long-term deal and the Twins get a discount over what they would have paid year by year. I think it's unlikely the Twins will have to go as high as Kipnis' deal; Dozier has never put together a season as good as Kipnis' all-star campaign and that drove a lot of that money. There's some risk in this seeing as how Dozier hasn't put together a complete consistent season yet, but when you factor the potential and the defense, he's an asset I think you want to lock down. I'd suggest the price is more likely to go up than go down if the team waits until say, the all-star break or next season to make a deal happen. If Dozier puts together back to back 5 WAR seasons he's not going to be cheap at all.

I can live with almost any of the serious options (May, Milone, Meyer, & Pelfrey) except Pelfrey. Sorry, there's no way he gets the job based on anything other than "veteran starter/stupid contract we gave him" and that's a bad play. I doubt Stauffer gets a serious look to start. May is my preference. Not only does he have nothing left to prove in AAA, he's shown enough to suggest he could be a real asset as a starter. The 5th slot should be perfect for him, as it'll let the team protect him a little and give him more space to grow. Hughes, Santana, Gibson, Nolasco, and May could be a very solid rotation, especially if you have guys like Meyer and Milone as the call-up options to hedge against injury. Not that any of the projection systems will like this pitching staff! Hopefully everyone gets the message that if you're injured to report it and not just try and "fight through it" without saying something...and the Twins medical staff gets better at treating injuries too...

We seem to be back to the situation we had at the start of the season, where Pinto wasn't playing full-time...only worse? Gah. This is exactly the kind of situation I was afraid of with our roster construction, where we don't have room for a 3rd catcher because of all the pitchers we're toting around and Gardy won't play Pinto and Suzuki together. I get that Suzuki has been playing really well all year and has earned starts...but Pinto has also played well and deserves starts (and more importantly needs them to develop as our catcher of the future). Sorry, this is a failing of the manager. It's exactly the sort of thing that drives people who watch the team every day completely nuts and national media who loooove Gardy completely miss when they helicopter in every couple of weeks.

Wait until May gets past "Super 2" status to bring him up. Yes, he's pitching well, but the walks are still an issue that he should be working on, and frankly it's a problem that will almost certainly be exacerbated in MLB. No reason to cost the franchise service time on a pitcher with a bright future who still has something to work on. I'm looking forward to seeing him, but the walks will hurt a lot more in The Show. I'm fine with him working on it for a few more starts in AAA.

With Fuld joining Hicks on the DL, there's no decent solution for CF (but again, that's a self-inflicted wound with the absurdity of the way they shuffled Presley, Mastro, etc around in favor of bloody Jason Bartlett) but why call up Nunez? Are they expecting him to play a little OF too? The 25-man makes no damn sense now.

This. There's enough filler on the 40-man to find room for Guerrier, but the Twins are carrying too many pitchers on the 25-man right now, having an embarrassingly thin bench, and an imbalanced roster. Does Florimon have options left? If so, I'm going to nominate him as a guy who needs to be sent down to work on his hitting. He's beyond awful right now and basically unplayable. Moreover, you just can't carry him on a roster with this light of a bench! Let Escobar start and take a look at Santana or Nunez for a while as the backup. Herrmann is a security blanket for the manager right now, not a MLB player. He and Florimon simply can't hit and the defensive ability of Florimon and positional flexibility of Herrmann just isn't enough to keep them on the active roster. Frankly, I'd rather see Parmelee added back to the 40-man so we can have an OF bench bat who has at least a theoretical chance to be a legit hitter than worry about Guerrier. The Twins have done a terrible job at managing their 25-and 40-man rosters this season. A little of this is injury-based, to be sure...but a lot of it is self-inflicted, starting with the Bartlett debacle.

The frustrating thing is with the current roster construction and Gardy's peccadilloes as a manager, there's absolutely no place for Parmelee on the Twins roster. We're carrying a gazillion pitchers, which seems to make little sense, now that the starters have started putting up quality starts. Herrmann doesn't really deserve a roster spot over Parmelee, excepting for the fact that he plays catcher, but if you take him off the roster, is Pinto going to get buried and lose most of his DH PT? Good lucking having Suzuki and Pinto playing on the same day if Gardy doesn't get a catcher on his bench. With Arcia coming back soon, I don't see a space for Parmelee coming up soon. He's going to have to stay where he is, and see if a different injury opens up an opportunity. They shouldn't give up on him; while he might be a AAAA player, it's still too early to make that judgement for certain. Here's hoping that the starting pitching continues to pitch deeper into games and reduces the need for an absurdly bloated pitching staff. With a relatively consistent rotation, you'd like to see the team get down to 11 pitchers and 14 position guys and give them more room to mix and match the lineup. Of course, this would be less of an issue if Herrmann was required as a security blanket for a nervous manager...

I'm not going to worry about Gibson's K rate as much if he can the ground ball rate high and the walks don't get out of control. So far the walks are a bit higher than I'd like, but he's keeping the ball in the park and keeping the balls on the ground, so I'm not terribly worried about him. The ERA+ is good, the FIP is good, Kyle Gibson is looking like what we hoped he might be. Nolasco needs to get more K's to be successful, however. Maybe his over-reliance on the fastball is a result of the cold weather and he'll be able to get a better feel for his breaking stuff with the weather warming up? He's got too much of a track record of success to be overly concerned, I think. If he's still 3 K's/9 below his career average at the end of May, then we need to start worrying...and Rick Anderson had better start updating his resume. Correia is who he is at this point; I'd say he's been a little unlucky so far this season: the ERA over 6 vs the FIP under 4 tends to reflect that. He's not going to get a ton of K's, but he should be a useful 5th starter this season and the team can cheerfully let him go at the end of the season having Meyer or May more than ready to take the job.

I'm fairly pleased with Hughes myself. I always thought he could be a good value for the twins, especially playing at Target Field, and so far that seems to be true. I do think he's going to do something to finish off hitters a little more efficiently if he's going to take another step forward; he doesn't have missed bats right now and while the foul balls are fine, it does show a problem in finishing off a hitter. Maybe Bobby Cueller can teach him a change up? Regardless, the 3 year deal is looking like a good one right now. I'm happy to see Deduno finally getting into the rotation. I wasn't a fan of the Pelfrey signing, especially since it was a multi-year deal. (In the economics of baseball, a 1 year deal will cause little damage) So far he's been beyond terrible. The DL seems to be a facing-saving maneuver for Pelfrey, who does seem like a good guy. But they just can't keep running him out there. I'm really hoping that the rotation keeps on this run of quality starts so the team can get back to a reasonable bench as Arcia and Willingham get healthy. Now, if the team could only do something to fix Florimon, who has (amazingly) gotten worse at the plate...

Willingham might go after this season if he keeps getting hurt, but I doubt he'll retire in the middle of this season. He looks like he still has something left in the tank, the question is whether or not he can stay on the field long enough to use it. Bartlett looked like a complete mess in every aspect of the game and hadn't played in a season and a half. While I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision for Jason, it's not like he didn't know this was a possibility. Willingham still might have life left as a RH DH in the AL after this season. CF is a mess right now, but the frustrating thing is how much of it is self-inflicted. Hicks was rushed up before he was ready after Span & Revere were dealt to replenish the farm system's pitching and it left the team with limited options. Buxton isn't ready yet, and the rest of the farm system are guys who are AAAA-type players. Nothing was done in the offseason as they wasting time and a roster space screwing around with Bartlett, who never should have been an option. That's just not good. The Bartlett experiment also cost the team some games from Josmil Pinto, as Gardy wasn't willing to DH him until Bartlett went down with the injury. That cost the team his services for 3-4 games (it's possible he would have gotten a rest day) and it's been clear from Day 1 that this team needs his bat. So the Bartlett experiment, which had little chance of succeeding, screwed up the lineup and the roster. None of it's irreversible or will cause much long-term damage, but it was still a bad choice filled with questionable decision-making.

While I agree that based on merit Deduno should be in the rotation and is miscast as a reliever, I'm mostly ok with taking another turn or two through the rotation before making a decision on kicking one of the current 5 to the pen and replacing them with Deduno. 2 starts is a pretty small sample size and I'm not ready to give up on anyone yet. Let's keep in mind that if we went purely based on merit based on results so far, Nolasco is the one that should get kicked into the pen. he's been flat-out awful so far, easily the worst of the five. You have to hope that with his track record and contract he bounces back and his early struggles are either climate related or he just needs some innings to get into form. The Bartlett decision is the one that I find really troubling. He's shown nothing to indicate he deserves a place on this roster. Again, it's a (very) small sample, but even in a handful of ABs he's looked totally lost at the plate and doesn't have the defensive skills any longer to be a super utility guy. He can't play OF, so what's he doing here? Hermann or Parmelee should have stuck from the start and now that they've added Nunez I have to believe Bartlett's time will be (deservedly) done soon.

I am completely baffled by Bartlet making this roster. He's got almost no upside at all, hasn't shown anything this spring, hasn't played recently, hasn't played well in even longer, and doesn't have a position fit for this team. I'm not going to pretend that Presley is a great loss, but he would have been an acceptable 4th OF and reasonable backup at CF and defensive replacement for Willingham/Arcia in the corners. Bartlet isn't either. Barring a trade, the back end of the roster isn't making a great deal of sense. I don't know who is to blame for this: Ryan, Gardy, or Antony but it speaks well of none of them. It's hardly fireable, but it doesn't do much to inspire confidence in a fan base that they're already asking a lot out of.

So...who is going to be the backup CF?