DJL44

It's hard to throw any movement pitch if you can't use your fingers effectively. It's impossible to be an effective major league pitcher without a movement pitch.

Will he start the season at AAA? There isn't any room for him in the rotation if they keep Winder and Sands as starters. There are no expectations for Randy Dobnak this season. He's an afterthought.

My guess is PECOTA is predicting a low run scoring environment for 2023.

Better than 1950 Babe Ruth

They paid a lot for Lopez. He's going to get as many chances as Colome.

If everyone is healthy there isn't really enough room for everyone. Balazovic and Henriquez would end up back in Double-A to begin the season.

Everything is so regressed in the predictors that you will rarely see an outstanding season or a terrible season.

They can put players on the 60 day injured list as of a few days ago.

If he's cheap enough to sign his mom might buy enough tickets to make it profitable.

Upgrade the spot now and upgrade it again later if you want. There's no reason to leave 3 spots (Paddack, Lewis, Canterino) empty right now.

The 5.66 ERA in AAA is more valuable when predicting this season. You can't count on everyone to be better than last year. As many will be worse as are better. I will go on record as saying that I think Winder and Sands should be converted to relief immediately. I'd still start them in AAA if possible.

They should add SOMEBODY. There is no reason to have empty roster spots at the beginning of the season. That's a waste of a resource.

I think they are doomed if they need to count on Dobnak, Balazovic, Sanchez, Henriquez, Sands or Headrick this season. That's 6 guys I don't want to see pitching for the Twins this season if they pitch anything like they did last season (which should be the default expectation). I'm not a big fan of Pagan, Megill or Coulombe either. I like the available free agents (including Hand) over that field. Their starting pitching depth is improved but the bullpen depth is terrible unless they eat their seed corn and convert the AAA starters into relievers. They moved Duran to the bullpen last year and now he's "too valuable" to move back to the rotation.

nicksaviking works in the front office?

They need to win in May, not just April. They need more depth. The difference between Hand and Moran is small but the difference between either and Sammons is huge. If you don't think Hand is good enough that's fine. I think he'd be in their top 10 relief pitchers. There's definitely SOMEONE available right now (Hand, Smith, Britton, Harris, Bradley) who is good enough to sign and they won't be around for much longer.

No, he'd be the 2nd lefty on Opening Day and Moran would get optioned for 2 weeks until the first reliever gets injured. A month in the big leagues beats the hell out of spending a month in the minors. MLB travel and per diems are a LOT better. A month extra toward vesting his pension is a big deal. Hand is at 9 years and 92 days and full vesting happens at 10 years. If he makes it until June he's fully vested.

It's a good idea if the major league deal is what you need to do to win the bid. A player will prefer a big league deal to a minor league deal with an opt-out. Everyone would rather be in the majors than not. I wouldn't throw big money at a reliever but I would offer the roster spot, which is open and costs literally nothing.

Falvey stated he wants Ober, Winder, Varland, SWR, Sands and Balazovic stretched out and starting. That means they're not options for the bullpen. I mean, they could be but that would mean they're not going to develop as a starter and they need to replace 3 starters this offseason. Stashak and Legumina are gone. Headrick (4.81 ERA), Laweryson (1.02 ERA), Funderburk (2.94 ERA), Bentley (3.79 ERA), Cabezas (3.13 ERA), Gross (4.03 ERA), Enlow (4.40 ERA), Sammons (5.76 ERA), Scherrf (5.27 ERA) - none of them have pitched above Double-A and most of them kinda sucked at Double-A. I'm not big on giving scholarships to minor leaguers who haven't proven themselves at AAA. Austin Schulfer (0.39 ERA in AA, 5.23 ERA in AAA) is a good example of why that's a bad idea. So you're left with Danny Coulombe. If the Twins like him better than Hand, that's fine (I don't). Oliver Ortega is a guy they grabbed and waived as a AAA stash. They still need to go get one (or more) of the other veteran relievers on the market because their bullpen is 3 pitchers deep off the 26 player roster. And I think you're actually confused about the process. They have 2 spots open on the 40 man roster once they put Paddack and Canterino on the 60 day injured list. They have a unique opportunity now because there are decent veteran pitchers available and they have an open roster spot. This opportunity goes away before the season begins. If they add one of those Double-A guys they can option him if he sucks, but then then he's on the 40 man and they can't remove him without allowing the league to grab a young pitcher for free. If they remove Enlow again he can elect free agency. You don't add pitchers with a future to the 40 man roster until they're ready to contribute or you're forced to because they are at risk of being taken in the Rule 5 draft. It's better to cycle through veterans.

If someone comes along who they like better they can cut the veteran and add the guy on waivers.

It doesn't really matter if he gets a minor league contract or a major league contract. There's an open spot on the roster. I listed the "stable" of untested and unknown arms. Which one of those arms do you think is better? Funderburk? Also, if you want to add a rookie to the roster and then cut him you have to expose him to waivers. That's a good way to lose a lot of talent simply because they weren't ready yet. The Twins didn't hold onto Joe Smith after he showed how bad he was even though they were using equally bad players like Aaron Sanchez, Jharel Cotton and Chi Chi Gonzalez. I ultimately don't care if it's Brad Hand or some other veteran reliever. There are a handful of unsigned vets better than that "stable" of untested and unproven arms. Add a new wrinkle today that Falvey wants Sands and Winder working as starting pitchers in the minors and the bullpen looks really, really thin. Duran, Lopez, Jax, Thielbar, Pagan, Alcala, Megill, Moran, Henriquez. That's only 9 guys for 8 spots and no depth whatsoever on the 40 man roster. They will use at least 15 pitchers in relief this year. I hope that "stable" produces 6 more pitchers better than Brad Hand.

Paddack and Canterino can move off the 40 man roster immediately. Sands, Henriquez, Alcala, Megill, Jax, Moran and Winder ALL have options.

I'm trying to tell you that Sands, Henriquez and Winder are still going to get PLENTY of innings in 2023 even if they add Brad Hand to the roster. He's not replacing any of them, he's temporarily (for a week or two) bumping them down one notch on the depth chart but they're still going to need 5-15 more pitchers beyond those that you mentioned. Teams don't use 13 pitchers a season, they use 25-30 of them. They should try to stash as many decent pitchers in AAA as possible because they will end up using all of them. They have 22 pitchers on the 40-man roster. Two of them are injured and unavailable for months. Balazovic and Headrick are not ready. 18 pitchers is probably not enough to make it until June. Last season it wasn't enough to make it until mid-May.

I guess you could compare Brad Hand to the 50+ innings they're likely to give to guys like Laweryson, Rozek, Funderburk, Sammons, Enlow, de Leon, Coulombe, Locke St. John, Connor Sadzeck, Parker Bugg, Tyler Webb, Chad Donato, Oliver Ortega, Brock Stewart, Aaron Sanchez, Austin Schulfer, Patrick Murphy, Samuel Perez, Carlos Luna, Jose Vazquez, Joel Garcia or Matt Mullenbach. 871 pitchers were used in MLB in 2022. That's an average of 29 pitchers per team. Brad Hand is better than the 20th pitcher the Twins have under contract. He might be better than the 15th pitcher they have under contract.

Better yet, look at some of the names in the top 20 for innings pitched for the 2022 Twins 6) Devin Smeltzer 70.1 9) Emilio Pagan 63 12) Trevor Megill 45.0 13) Tyler Duffey 44.0 15) Jharel Cotton 35.0 16) Cole Sands 30.2 17) Aaron Sanchez 28.2 18) Joe Smith 27.1 That's a whole lot of bleh. They gave innings to 36 pitchers and 2 position players last season. Brad Hand could be useful, even if it's just avoiding the 56 innings they gave Ian Hamilton, Austin Davis, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Derek Rodriguez, Juan Minaya, Tyler Thornburg, Nick Gordon, Jermaine Palacios and Yennier Cano.

On Opening Day, absolutely. Winder, Sands, Henriquez, Megill, Moran, even Alcala if he looks off. Some pitcher will be on the injured list within 2 weeks and someone else can come up. It's impossible to keep 13 pitchers healthy at the same time. Just look at last April: Before the season started - Cody Stashak injured, Jharel Cotton added. 4/12 - Alcala to the injured list, Dereck Rodriguez added to the roster 4/17 - Sonny Gray to the injured list 4/20 - Jhon Romero injured 4/30 - Bailey Ober injured 5/6 - Dylan Bundy injured 5/10 - Chris Paddack injured 5/11 - Danny Coulombe injured 5/21 - Winder injured 5/22 - Stashak injured 5/25 - Joe Ryan injured 5/28 - Coulombe injured That's just April and May and they used the injured list for pitchers 11 times. Let's avoid using quad-A players like Cotton, Coulombe, Minaya, Rodriguez and Smeltzer or bringing up rookies too soon like they did last year with Sands, Moran and Cano.