MeleMouth

Sounds like you think they should just give up hope for 2028. According to you, there's little chance that someone like Abel or Prielipp will be better in 2028 than 2026 Joe Ryan, there's nobody better coming through the pipeline, the opportunity to trade veterans and develop better pitchers may have passed - and the pipeline doesn't really develop pitchers anyway, and they won't sign anybody.

With rare exceptions, pitching development doesn't go from being in the minors to automatically being a 4 WAR pitcher. Certainly, there are great pitchers like Kershaw who are dominant by the time they are 23, but more good pitchers go through a few years of development before their approach their ceiling. That doesn't mean that Rojas is going to be great, and he does in fact have warning signals, but it would be a big mistake to start the "it looks like he isn't going to make it" drumbeat.

This is a key understanding. It's not political views that are problematic, but being "a world class loser and piece of ****."

That's what developing pitchers means. Besides, for 2028, what else can you effectively do now? You can do like Arizona did a couple of times and sign top free agents like Madison Bumgarner and Corbin Burnes, but then you're just exchanging your risk - from the risk of non-development to the risk of injury or decline. These five pitchers are highly unlikely to be the five primary starters on the 2028 team. That doesn't mean that it's a "crisis" that needs to be addressed today. We have no idea if, in 2028, they will be better or worse than our current rotation. Again, that's what developing pitchers means. Overall, it would be a bigger mistake to project a 2028 staff based on how a pitcher performed in 2026.

What they need are Tampa's strategies today. Besides, Kalk was a member of the analytics staff. Saying that he "helped shape" their strategies before 2017 is both relying on ancient history and overstating his importance. I'm done with this conversation. If you want to say that a new pitching coach shouldn't be involved in shaping an organization's pitching development strategy, have at it.

Pitchers improve on various timelines. Zack Wheeler has more than 45 fWAR, but he didn't fully establish himself until he was 28. (And before you say Wheeler's different because his issue was injuries, (1) note that he had control problems before he was injured, and (2) ask yourself if you would have posted a complaint about 27 year-old, 0.2 fWAR Zack Wheeler needing to go to the bullpen because he hadn't shown he could handle being a starter.) Rojas has two options left. 2027 isn't "pivotal" for him, nor is his development in 2027 "pivotal" for the Twins, because they have several other options for the rotation.

It's an organizational effort, but treating the "pitching coach" as a mechanic and not as an important shaper of organizational strategy and processes would be a surprise to coaches like Carl Willis, Kent Schrom, and Wes Johnson, and it would be huge surprise and disappointment if the Twins aren't asking Reith to bring some of Tampa's strategies and systems to Minnesota.

The topic being discussed is whether there is a timing imbalance between the Twins' pitching and hitting prospects. Similar risks of injury or failure to reach a ceiling apply to the top position player prospects, such as Jenkins and Culpepper.

In 2028, hopefully, Abel and Prielipp will be in their third years in the big leagues and hitting their primes. Bradley will have settled into being a solid above-average pitcher, and at least one of Rojas and Matthews will have become at least a solid #4. 2028 would also be a reasonable year to expect Jenkins, Lackey, etc. to start becoming above-average players. I agree that the organization needs more talent, especially high-end talent, but I don't see the same timing imbalance.

So you're saying when they bring in a new pitching coach from a team that has a better system for developing pitchers they should not have him change their system for developing pitchers? If you bring in someone you think is great but ask him to do it the way you've always done it, he'll be no better than the last guy.

The wish to extend Lopez gets said a lot, because he seems like a good person and, when healthy, he's been a very good pitcher. However, he's going to need approximately a 4.5 fWAR season this year for the value he's produced under his 4-year deal from 2024-27 to equal the amount he's been paid. He's coming off his second TJ surgery. Gerrit Cole, a better pitcher, just produced 2.1 fWAR in his first year after his first TJ, and Spencer Strider, also a better pitcher, had 1.0 fWAR in his first season after his second TJ, before tailing off to 0.1 fWAR in his second year back and being talked about by Atlanta management as possibly losing his spot in the rotation for next year. Shane Bieber, also a better pitcher, has produced a total of 0.4 fWAR in the two years since returning from his TJ. Perhaps the best recent return from TJ was Jacob DeGrom's 3.4 fWAR in the first year back after his second TJ, but DeGrom also is a superior pitcher - Lopez exceeded 3.4 fWAR only once in his career . Perhaps Pablo can produce better than Cole, Bieber, Strider, or DeGrom did in their first years after returning from TJ, but a gambler would need long odds to take that bet. It's almost impossible that he'll come anywhere near the approximately 4.5 fWAR needed to make his current contract breakeven for the Twins. Therefore, despite how awesome he's been, without knowing a lot more about his recovery, it would be unwise for the Twins to enter into another multi-year contract with Pablo Lopez, particularly at anywhere near the $21.75 million they're going to pay him in 2027. P.S. A salary cap might really hit salaries for pitchers, because of the risk from tying up a large percentage of allowable payroll in a player who could spend a lot of time on the IL or lose effectiveness quickly.

Yes, they don't want to go into 2028 with just these five pitchers as they are today, but that doesn't mean that issue needs to be solved in the next 12 months. Get back to us in the winter of 2027-28, after we've seen how these 5 guys are doing, how pitchers in the minors are progressing, and who's available in free agency and by trade. Also, it seems impossible to say today that these five guys would be a bottom 10 rotation in 2028. Many teams have no or few starters today who will be under control then. For example, all of Tampa's current starters will be gone. On the other hand, for $57 million, Toronto can count on Dylan Cease and Jose Berrios, plus for a few million more they will have Yesavage, Francis and Arrighetti. It's hard to sit here today and project that the Twins five, who were arguably worse in 2026, will still be worse in 2028.

The Twins should not trade one of their best trade chips for a guy whose ceiling is 3 WAR, just had a bad year by underlying metrics, and is probably already on the downswing of his career.

You don't know Bo.

None of the four teams in the 2026 ALCS or NLCS had all of their current starters in line two years ago. In fact, a large percentage of their starters were acquired within the past 3 to 15 months and at least three of the best other pitchers, Misiorowski, Henderson, and Messick, had a lot of doubt about them at this time in 2024. Worrying about the 2028 rotation at this time is useless anxiety, especially when you have five good internal candidates who have pitched in the majors already, plus several other candidates in the lower minors, and have many larger problems to solve before being a truly competitive team.