Nick Nelson

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4015[/ATTACH]You've probably heard the story by now. On the very day that Vance Worley was told by Philadelphia general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. that he'd been traded from the Phillies to the Minnesota Twins, the 25-year-old pitcher had been planning to pick up an engagement ring from the jeweler so that he could propose to his girlfriend. Worley, who had just signed a lease for a new house in South Jersey nearby Philly, suddenly had his entire life uprooted. He would be leaving the only organization he'd ever known and heading to the American League Central, where instead of pitchers the opposing lineups are rounded out by powerful designated hitters like Victor Martinez, Adam Dunn, Billy Butler and Mark Reynolds. Tough break for a control pitcher with fringy stuff. And as it turns out, Worley's misfortune was just beginning. Maybe while he was packing his belongings for the move to the Midwest, he dropped a mirror and shattered it. Maybe he walked under a ladder, or a black cat crossed his path. Whatever the reason, the right-hander has been snakebitten thus far for the Twins, experiencing tumult unlike anything he's seen in his career. When he entered the fold, Worley instantly became the Twins' most accomplished starting pitcher, as reflected by his assignment to start on Opening Day. In parts of three seasons with the Phillies, he had compiled an 18-13 record and 3.50 ERA, and in 2011 he finished third for Rookie of the Year. Yet the early results in Minnesota have been roundly disappointing. Through seven starts, Worley is 0-4 with a 6.95 ERA. In 33 2/3 innings, he has given up a league-leading 55 hits, contributing to a ghastly 1.90 WHIP. After each poor start, Worley sounds like a guy who's more flabbergasted than frustrated. "The ball was coming out, doing what I wanted it do," he said after coughing up six runs in Detroit last week. "They just came out swinging." While it might be easy to see a lack of accountability in the pitcher's remarks, it's also not hard to see some truth. He really is doing many of the same things that made him a successful pitcher in Philly. His velocity is the same, he's throwing strikes and his pitches are moving. He is by all accounts healthy and feeling good. His ground ball rate, at 50.4 percent, is actually far higher than his norm. Still the hits keep on coming. Worley has been saddled with a batting average on balls in play of .407, which is the highest in the major leagues and 90 points above his previous career mark. That is a sign of dreadful luck. Sure, it doesn't help that the Twins aren't an especially great defensive club, and Worley has given up his fair share of hard hits, but nothing can explain such an exorbitant number. He's getting killed by bleeders and bloopers. In addition, Worley's HR/FB rate of 13.9 percent is the highest on the Twins staff and the highest of his career. He's stranding only 61.4 percent of his ample base runners – the lowest mark of his career and the lowest of any Twins' starter save for Mike Pelfrey. Certainly Worley needs to make some adjustments. Whether it's scouting-related or the nature of AL lineups, hitters have been more aggressive against him this year and he needs to find a way to leverage that rather than letting it beat him. But he hasn't pitched anywhere near as badly as his numbers suggest, and over time if he keeps executing his game plan he is going to get better results. There's simply no way this run of poor luck can sustain, unless he incurred some type of voodoo curse over the offseason. That isn't to say Worley is going to turn into a legitimate No. 1 starter any time soon, or even that he'll be able to match his NL success. His 12.7 percent K-rate leaves much to be desired and falls well short of his 20 percent mark in the Senior Circuit. Nevertheless, I think his 4.18 xFIP is a much better indicator of what we can expect from him going forward than his current bloated ERA.

Gardy is definitely tougher on Plouffe than most of the players. There's no question that the Twins are trying to light a fire under his ass, and we can see evidence of that dating back to TR's very public pronouncements about wanting to find competition at third (and inexplicably not SS/2B) during the offseason. I get the sense that they see too much Valencia in him and want to steer him away from that path. Whether they're taking the right approach is unclear, but I don't think we should assume it's wrong.

Arcia and Hicks both introduced to baseball's most legendary stadium with the bases loaded against the reigning AL pitcher of the month. Hard to hold the strikeouts against them; nothing can prepare you for that. The good news is that they're getting all these experiences out of the way now.

Unless the rest of the league's third basemen are available for Gardenhire to write into his lineup on a nightly basis, I fail to see the relevance. We're talking about Plouffe's value to the Twins, and he's clearly one of the most potent sluggers on the team. Your final sentence is accurate, and makes me wonder what exactly is your point of contention here.

That's not necessarily unrelated. A guy is bound to lose some accuracy on his throws when he's forced to release more quickly because the runner is almost to second by the time he receives the ball.

OK. Enough. You can make your point without being obnoxious.

I think you're right. For what it's worth, Mike Berardino says the idea of using Perez as a starter was "DOA."

He hit 24 homers in 120 games last year and he's currently slugging .463. I'd like to hear how that description does not fit him, particularly relative to the rest of this team.

I don't really agree with you guys on the tag. Even if the umpire missed the call, there's no chance it happens if Plouffe holds his glove down until it makes solid contact with the runner (which it clearly did not, it might have glanced his fingers). What is the benefit to the quick swipe? It's not a fundamentally sound play.

He made his first appearance of the season in Rochester yesterday, tossing a 1-2-3 inning on seven pitches. How will the Twins handle him? How should they? They spoke about trying to turn him into a starter when they acquired him during the offseason, but following that path would probably mean waiting at least another month to get him into the fold, and even then success seems like a longshot since he hasn't started in about a decade. Keeping him in a relief role would likely hasten his timeline and would potentially give the Twins a secondary lefty specialist behind Brian Duensing.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1670-Three-Bagger-Pelfrey-s-Progress-Plouffe-s-Paradox-Rebounds

* Last week, I wrote that Mike Pelfrey's struggles had a reached a point where he should be removed from the rotation until he demonstrates legitimate signs of progress. In his next start, which came Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, that progress was plenty evident. Go figure. Sure enough, Pelfrey delivered his best start of the season by far, with six innings of one-run ball. His fastball flashed a couple ticks higher on the gun than we ever saw in April, and the added velocity (along with noticeably improved command) paid clear dividends. For the first time this year, hitters seemed to struggle at times to catch up to his heater, increasing the effectiveness of his off-speed offerings. After striking out only seven hitters in his first five starts for an MLB-worst 6.5 percent K-rate, Pelfrey notched seven strikeouts Sunday, with a few coming at crucial moments. He induced a season-high 13 swings and misses. Whether it's the warmer weather, or the kinks being worked out after a month's work, or some combination, Pelfrey looked like a different guy on Sunday. And it was an opportune time for it, because on the same day, three hurlers with eyes on his job – Samuel Deduno, Alex Meyer and Cole De Vries – were all pitching for minor-league affiliates. * Trevor Plouffe displayed again in Sunday's game why he might be the team's most intriguing yet frustrating player. His two-run homer in the second gave the Twins an early lead that stuck. The dinger was Plouffe's fourth this season, placing him second on the team behind Josh Willingham. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3996[/ATTACH] But in the field, there was yet another lapse. In the fourth inning Asdrubal Cabrera attempted to steal third base, and Joe Mauer's throw had him beat handily. Plouffe went down to apply the tag, but rather than holding his glove down he made a quick swipe maneuver. Cabrera took advantage, stopping short with one hand and reaching around Plouffe with his other arm to touch the base safely. It's these kinds of little things that drive Ron Gardenhire crazy. Plouffe has shown again and again that he's capable of making all the plays at third, but his flashiness and inattention to details will do him no favors with a manager who lives and breaths fundamentals. We've already seen Plouffe benched multiple times this season for offenses of a similar nature. Gardy's patience appears to be running thin. But at the same time, the Twins can't afford to take the slugger's potent bat out of the lineup. The manager will just have to find it within himself to live through the miscues, because sliding Plouffe to the outfield no longer looks like a feasible option. * With Sunday's win, the Twins were able to fend off the brooms in Cleveland, marking the third straight series in which they fell behind 0-2 and rebounded to avoid a sweep. To date, the Twins have only come away winless in one series – an early-April set in Kansas City. By this point last year, they'd already been swept four times. Granted, winning one game per series is hardly ideal if it becomes an ongoing trend, but the Twins are showing some resilience, and in the process they're avoiding extended losing streaks.

I think this is the big thing. Twins pitchers did a horrible job of holding runners last year. That, combined with Mauer's improved help giving him more spring out of the crouch, probably explains the early improvement. He's always had a great arm.

Pelfrey looked like a different guy today. I'm stunned. I'll eat some crow in tomorrow's post.

People keep complaining about Plouffe getting singled out by Gardy, but that missed tag on the steal of third is a prime example of why. You have got to hold your glove down until you tag the guy. It's like he's more interested in looking flashy than playing fundamentally sound.

I'm in the camp that thinks Swarzak is best suited for the role he's in right now. He has consistently had success as a reliever and struggled as a starter. Then again, he's still only 27 and he was a pretty good SP prospect at one point. Given the alternatives, I wouldn't necessarily be against giving him one more try in the rotation. But I think he offers significant value to this team as a long reliever and I've been saying so for some time. Speaking of Swarzy, where are all the folks who were telling me in March that he should be off the roster?

Why on Earth would he refuse a minor-league assignment? It's not like the Twins would be trying to screw him over. The move would be 100 percent justified and no big-league team is going to grab him and put him in their rotation right now. The best thing for Pelfrey's career would be to accept the assignment, rattle off some good starts in Triple-A and put together a strong remainder of the year. I have to believe he realizes that. But if he really would be so brazen as to reject the assignment, then fine, let him loose. There's no reason they should be held hostage by a struggling veteran on a one-year deal.

I don't think that's really accurate. More like, his ability to rack up tons of strikeouts is an indicator that he can dominate major-league hitters, which gives him more upside than his overall numbers indicate. When the command isn't there, he's obviously a bad pitcher, but he's been able to harness it at times in the past and I'd rather gamble on that than some junk-tosser who lobs it over the plate and crosses his fingers. I agree with the "give me neither" sentiment but with the Twins that ain't really how it works. You're going to get flawed pitchers so the question is what flaws are you willing to live with.

On a related note, I just realized that my many screams of "Boo! Terrible!" may have gone unnoticed by a certain No. 3 catcher...

And those are the guys I'm talking about. I agree that the Twins aren't going to acquire star-caliber players through the FA avenue -- which is why they need a couple of their own prospects to reach that level -- but they should be able to add several reasonably decent supporting pieces. Yeah, they'll have to overpay for those pieces, but they can afford to do so with as many cheap young contributors as they figure to have. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Alex Meyer isn't the Twins' best prospect but he's their most important one. If he doesn't turn into that front-of-rotation type arm, they're going to have a really tough time finding one elsewhere, at least in time to make a run with Mauer.

Or come up with some lame nickname, like... Michael... Cruddy-ear. ... I'll show myself out.

This thread basically echoes my sentiments from last week's post about the Twins' rebuilding timeline being accelerated. You've got to be encouraged by things happening all around the organization. We certainly can't assume that Sano/Buxton/Meyer are all going to keep tearing it up like they have thus far, but all three are positioning themselves for midseason promotions which would put them all in position to make an impact as soon as next year (Buxton being somewhat of a long shot). There will be tons of money available to add around them if the Twins are willing to return somewhere close to the $100M payroll mark.