whosafraidofluigirussolo

Several signs would seem to point toward Ryan being the next up to start. I like Ryan too and am glad he'll be on this team for years to come - but if they're looking at a piggyback situation, could they start Maeda, for the reasons cited here? Start with the less homer-prone pitcher and adjust the pitching plan based on the game situation. If they have a lead in the middle innings, they can use Ryan with the homers being a bit less of a risk. If Maeda really cruises and can pitch into the fifth or sixth, they have the option to use a more conventional parade of relievers.

Genuinely surprised that Varland is going today. He only faced one batter and threw very few pitches yesterday - but between the pitches he expended warming up and his being so new to relieving, I would have expected them to try to avoid using him on back to back days anyway.

They'd rather get off the field, get on the plane, and get everyone home to rest for workouts tomorrow and a playoff series in 2 days. It looks weird to put a position player in to pitch in a tie game, but in this context it makes sense.

Odd happenstance that they came over in the same trade and now one is being DFAed in order to activate the other.

Maeda pitched 3.1 innings (13 batters, 62 pitches) on Thursday. He was "moved to the bullpen" for now, at least the rest of the regular season, but if he throws 1-2 innings (like a side session) in this Rockies series or if they hold him out of these games altogether, it seems like this routine would allow him to start again in game 3 if needed.

Lopez has actually fared better against batters when facing them for a third time, with an OPS over 100 points lower than the first or second time he sees a batter in a game. Even with his performance, it’s likely that Lopez will be asked to pitch through the fifth frame and then turn things over to the bullpen. I get the logic of shorter starts in the postseason, absolutely, but man... even if the bullpen looks better with recent reinforcements, I trust López and Gray more than a lot of the bullpen right now. Obviously the actual in-game situation and how each pitcher looks on that day will determine the strategy more than anything, but I agree with the comment above—have a reliever warmed up but at least let López try to go six.

There was a good point in some article about the Twins playoff rotation recently—maybe it was Do-Hyoung Park on the MLB site (?)—saying that the best choice of 3rd starter may depend on who the opponent was, and the difference of "style" or repertoire between the pitchers. Ryan's heavy use of the fastball high in the zone might play well against one team while Maeda's offspeed and breaking stuff plays well against another. Of course, they don't know who their first-round opponent is yet. I kind of wanted to see Maeda in that third slot. But if he pitches once or twice out of the bullpen, multiple innings, he's probably not too far off his regular routine if and when they want him to slot back into the rotation.

I've got bad news for you about Kikuchi

Twins dot em el bee dot com shows Ober up and starting tonight, Headrick to AAA. Is this the beginning of a strategy for resting pitchers via a 6-man rotation or skipping some guys' rotation turns? Or possibly one or more of Keuchel, Ober, and Maeda prepared for piggyback-length appearances?

My god... Take the lefty-lefty matchup, with an on-base machine at the plate, over pinch hitting to get the platoon advantage that's highly likely to evaporate when the other team counters with a new reliever.

I don't think I've ever, literally ever, criticized Baldelli for doctrinaire handedness-based decisions with the lineup, pinch-hitting, and the like. Pinch-hitting Vázquez for Julien when down to their last out here feels like a move made by someone who doesn't want to win.

Probably all of us would like to see Jeffers start more, but realistically I don't think we can expect the Twins to shift the shares of catching much more than giving Jeffers slightly more than half the starts; this looks like the most winnable pitching matchup in a series where they've taken the first two games already; and they have a tougher opponent in the Rays coming up tomorrow. All in all, it's not a bad situation to see Vázquez in the lineup.

From what I remember reading about Gallo leaving the Yankees, he pretty openly said that it had affected him personally when NY sports media and fans amplified the way he already knew, himself, that he wasn't performing. Between that and the context in the Post piece, which speculates "Gallo’s edginess that might not mix well with New York," I would interpret that "edginess" means more "being on edge," and less "has an edge that some teammates don't like."

The Twins playing Texas two weeks in a row provides plenty of opportunity to hear the broadcasters mispronounce the name “Taveras”

Yep - the latest report added Moore to the Guardians' waiver claims too. Definitely starts to sting a little bit when the 2nd-place team chasing the Twins adds THREE of these freely available players.

Not to get too far into the weeds on this, but the Anderson transaction doesn't imply that these are revocable waivers (which did indeed go away with the second trade deadline, as far as I know.) The way I understand it (which is probably incomplete), under the old rules with waiver trades, a team could pull its player back from waivers even if another team claimed him. So a team placing a claim was trying to claim the right to negotiate a trade. With the old rules, if the Angels put Anderson on a revocable waiver and (let's say) the Reds won the claim, if they didn't offer a trade the Angels wanted, they would simply pull Anderson off the waiver and keep him. This is why teams put a lot of players on the old revocable waivers, because they could gauge potential trades and there was no risk of losing players for nothing. So I think the actual current situation with Anderson is an option the Angels had when he cleared a different kind of waiver. On an outright waiver, a team could have claimed him and would owe only his salary for the rest of the year. If no one claims a player on outright, the original team theoretically has the right to keep him in the organization without giving him a 40-man roster spot, except that Anderson should have had enough service time to reject an assignment to the minors. So assuming he cleared outright waivers, the Angels probably knew he would choose free agency and they'd still owe the rest of his salary, so they just kept him and re-committed the roster spot to him. I'm pretty sure that's a way that a player can be waived and not change teams.

Hard to say whether Garver's comments really indicate any bitterness about being traded. That may be reading too much between the lines. But I did wonder—leaving aside whatever one may think of retaliatory HBPs; I think they're usually dumb—if there had to be a plunking, did it have to be Garver? I know he and Gray never played together, but it seems unnecessary to choose to hit a guy who used to play for your team and seemingly never had a reputation as anything other than a good teammate.

This is a good point—it's hard to see why they couldn't have found some suitable #20-something-ranked prospect who they could stomach giving up to add depth to the bullpen. (Guessing you meant Robertson instead of Peterson?) I also wonder whether they really couldn't have found a rookie-ball player the Mets liked just a little more than whoever they got from the D-backs for Tommy Pham...that was never going to be a costly deal and he seemed to make a lot of sense as a role player.

I know the BTV trade simulator can show some real flaws—and particularly at the trade deadline, the higher value placed on proven MLB players relative younger/MiLB players' upside will deviate from the formula that puts an "absolute" trade value on each player. However, for what it's worth, the simulator values Larnach alone more than Raley and Pham together. The Mets certainly have money to throw around, but I don't know what backs up the claim that they have "no standards." Certainly with their last big deal, they used their spending power to pay down Scherzer's contract with the precise purpose to get a particular prospect, or level of prospect, back. Even with the Lindor trade a couple years ago (leaving aside how the subsequent contract extension looks) they didn't touch their top prospects to make the deal.

If the Twins were looking to trade with the Mets, they could get both - Brooks Raley should be available in addition to Canha and Pham.

This trade will make it extra fun if/when Giolito signs with the Dodgers as a free agent.

Not that I think there's any real reason to worry about Jenkins signing, but I looked this morning and I believe he's the only first-rounder still unsigned, and one of only about 4 unsigned players in the top two rounds plus compensation rounds. They're making us wait!

It was a homecoming of sorts for Joe Ryan. The Southern California native took the mound... Ryan is from Northern California so it may have been more of a homecoming than you describe here - he's from Marin County just outside of San Francisco.

This makes me think of Miami's recent decision to option their young starter Eury Pérez. He was a top prospect and he's been good in the majors, so the report was that they're managing his innings due to the limited number he'd thrown in past seasons (and I don't think they made any secret of that fact) and wanted him to save some bullets for the playoffs. The Twins would be in a different situation—they have a decent chance to make the postseason by winning their weak division but have a much worse record (and maybe less hope of playoff success) than the Marlins, and Ober's in his third year, not a rookie. But it does seem like the same logic could be at play. If they right the ship enough in the second half to make the playoffs, I think Ober belongs in the playoff rotation, at least in a four-man one.

This makes me think of Miami's recent decision to option their young starter Eury Pérez. He was a top prospect and he's been good in the majors, so the report was that they're managing his innings due to the limited number he'd thrown in past seasons (and I don't think they made any secret of that fact) and wanted him to save some bullets for the playoffs. The Twins would be in a different situation—they have a decent chance to make the postseason by winning their weak division but have a much worse record (and maybe less hope of playoff success) than the Marlins, and Ober's in his third year, not a rookie. But it does seem like the same logic could be at play. If they right the ship enough in the second half to make the playoffs, I think Ober belongs in the playoff rotation, at least in a four-man one.