IndianaTwin

Gray's schedule had him throwing his first game this past Monday. But since the Twins had the day off, he threw in a minor league game. Sunday's starter isn't listed yet, but I suspect it will be him. A tidbit I heard yesterday is that options during April won't count against the limit of five options per year that was put in for this year. I wonder if that helps Winder's chances of making the opening day roster. With Gray's delayed start, for example, he could be an easy piggy-back partner for Gray's first start and then be sent down.

Let's hope this one is above average, since we've already gotten major league time for Rooker and Ober, and Lewis, Enlow and Barnes haven't debuted yet!

They may have made up for it in the 12th round that year (Bailey Ober). Baseball drafting is such a crapshoot.

Nice. I haven't seen much spring stuff, but in seeing a highlight from yesterday, I thought he looked goooood in that slimmed-down physique. Methinks we're going to be able to add "400 feet" as a descriptor to a lot of those homers.

That would be only 12 position players. I’d think it would be Celestino OR Godoy. Along with Winder and another pitcher.

Too many Larry and Sue Capital One commercials, I guess. But I've been thinking: now that Opening Day is just eight days away, what's the one word that best describes your perspective going into the season? I'm writing as an eternal optimist, but I'm going to go with "intrigued." I'm intrigued to see what lineup combinations Rocco will try, especially at the top of the order. And I say "combinations," because there will be many. Last year, there were 149 different lineups in 162 games. Part of that was injuries, but flexibility in roster and lineup construction is a hallmark of this administration. I'm intrigued to see what it's like to have Byron and Carlos hitting back-to-back, at least on occasion. I've been wondering, but haven't seen anyone note whether this is the first time that the top two players in a single draft ended up as teammates. I'm intrigued to see exactly how tiny the Bermuda triangle between Buxton, Correa and Polanco is going to be. And while I'm at it with the Byron and Carlos lovefest, I'm intrigued to know what the laundry bill is going to for cleaning the shorts of opposing pitchers if those two get on a roll at the same time, especially if Sano happens to hit one of his hot streaks at the same time. Not sure I REALLY want to know that answer, but sorta intrigued in a macabre sort of way. I'm intrigued to see if either Bundy or Archer is able to reclaim their prior highlights. I'm intrigued of what this notion of a Gray-Bundy-Archer-Ryan-Ober rotation might actually pull off. I'm also intrigued at what looks a little like a hodgepodge of relievers, and how there seems to be different skill sets represented, and how they could conceivably turn into a unit where the whole is significantly better than the sum of its parts. I'm intrigued to see how Rocco works with that 10-man bullpen. Some (many) of his decisions look wacko on the service (and get lambasted in the Game Thread), but my experience has been that very often when I drill down to consider the rest patterns, pitcher availability, the likelihood of actually winning the game at hand, and how things set up for the next day, there is almost always a logical progression. Doesn't always work, but it's logical -- that's the nature of the beast. And that's why I'm sitting at home on the Game Thread instead of being in the dugout. I'm especially intrigued with how Rocco meshes that bullpen with a starting rotation in which day-to-day consistency may be severely lacking. Each of the five starters (make that 10-12 by year-end) have the potential to be really good on a given day. Or really bad. As the self-proclaimed inventor of the bullpenning strategy after riding a three-man rotation and incredible cards from Mike Timlin and a bunch of guys I can't remember to the 1992 Northern Indiana Offseason Strat-O-Matic regular-season championship, I think it will be fun to see the mixing and matching. I'm intrigued to see how long the leash is going to be on pitchers, both starter and reliever, and which order other guys come up, both in terms of 26/28-man roster and 40-man roster decisions. That includes the guys on minor league contracts that will have to wait their turn. I'm intrigued to see if Sanchez can simultaneously regain his power stroke and become something more reliable than a cement block at stopping pitches. I'm intrigued by Larnach. At my one and only College World Series game, about two weeks after he was drafted, he jacked a long home run, and I thought, "Oh, my -- this could be fun." While I'm at it, I'm intrigued by Kirilloff too. I'm intrigued to see how Lewis bounces back. I'm intrigued to see if Miranda is indeed legit and whether he's able to force the issue. And Winder and Enlow, etc. See three bullets previous. I'm intrigued to find out the taste of Killebrew Root Beer, and I'm looking forward to trying it at a Saints game in a couple weeks. I'm intrigued to see if, and when, they pull off a trade for a pitcher. This front office works under the radar, and I can easily imagine waking up some morning to a May Day present (and I don't mean just Trevor) of somebody's No. 2 starter that they got for Jermaine Palacios. Or a second present, when they re-sign Palacios after he's been DFAed by his new team and then trade him again! Okay, probably not Palacios, but I wouldn't be surprised if they pull something off when we least expect it, at the cost of only a lottery pick. I'm intrigued by how many of us will be in Cooperstown on July 17 to see Tony O and Kitty Kaat. I'm intrigued by whether they'll go with the powder blue or the Dairy Queen red in Game 1 vs. the Dodgers in October. (See line 3 and the statement about being an optimist.) I'm intrigued by the forgotten man, and whether Kenta Maeda might sneak back for some late-season usage, either with a few starts or in the bullpen, where he's had some past success. (See previous bullet for a hint of what I'm talking about.) I'm intrigued to find out what a Godoy is. And whether we'll be waiting for him. So, "intrigued" is my word. What are you intrigued about? And what's the word that captures where you're at with this team?

My favorite folk singer has an album entirely of baseball songs, the title track being "Sermon on the Mound." If you search for "John McCutcheon baseball songs" on YouTube, you'll find his songs about Roberto Clemente, Yogi Berra, the '57 World Series, etc., but unfortunately not that cut. He also wrote a wonderful song following Hank Aaron's death, but it's unfortunately not been recorded. https://www.folkmusic.com/store/p18/Sermon_On_the_Mound.html

And Riverbrian sorta ninja-ed me by being briefer. It's just that "brief" and "IT" are rarely used in the same sentence. You should hear me when it's my turn to preach on Sunday morning!

Shoemaker stunk and probably needed to go, but if you look at his game log, it sorta tells a different/weird story. From the beginning of the season: 6 IP, 1 run, so a quality start. 5 IP, 4 runs, not so good. 3.1 IP, 5 runs, another turd 5.1 IP, 2 runs, so close to a quality start, but particularly because of the third start, he's at an ugly 5.49. 3.1 IP, 8 runs. Ouch. They were down 4-0 after 3, so it was already tough to come back, so I suspect he was taking one for the team in trying to get another inning or two out of him, but after he gave up 8 runs total, Rocco mercifully takes him out. Now he's up to 7.83 and seems to be pitching for his job. They actually gave Thorpe a start after this to give a recently pummeled starting staff an extra day. And lo and behold, Shoemaker give us... 5.0 IP, 0 runs. Yay! 6.0 IP, 5 runs. Boo! He'd given up a run through four, but then gave up a pair in the fifth on a walk and a homer and then went 1-2-3. In the sixth, he went out-out, but then walk-homer and they're down 5-0 and a decent start had turned ugly. 6.0 IP, 2 runs. Yay! 6.0 IP, 1 run. Yay! And he'd gotten the ERA down to 5.48, thanks to nearly having four quality starts in a row, with one of them having turned into a bad outing. 4.1 IP, 5 runs. Boo. And it was about here that the team's injuries were starting to kick in, as I recall. 0.1 IP, 8 runs. The turd that got him booted from the rotation and skied his ERA back to 7.28. So yeah, the ERA was horrible, but he actually had a bunch of decent starts (particularly for a No. 5) thrown in there. It's just that when he was bad, he was really bad. And as a veteran, Rocco knew that he could take it for the team in a way that a rookie probably couldn't. And with those starts, he also bought time for Ober. Ober had been up a couple weeks earlier and gave up four runs in four innings, but then went back down and apparently righted himself, coming back up to take Shoemaker's spot in the rotation. Then Shoemaker went to the pen in a last-gasp effort to right himself (and to eat innings, as I recall). He pitched a high-leverage game and threw a scoreless inning in the eighth before the Twins tied it in the bottom. Then he blew it in the ninth. A couple days later, he came in to mop up and threw the last two innings after they were down 11-2. He added to it, giving up three more runs in the process. But then he had eight days off. And Rocco went to him in desperation, bringing him in as the sixth guy out of the pen in an extra-inning game. And he threw two no-hit innings to pick up the win! And then a couple days later, he threw a scoreless ninth in a 4-1 loss, and you started to think that maybe he was going to be serviceable in the pen. And maybe, just maybe, would right himself enough to get back to the rotation. And then he came in to be the long man after Ober gave up four runs in three innings. Ober had gone walk-out-single to start the fourth. Shoemaker came in, gave up the sac fly and got an out, keeping the team in the game. But in the fifth, Bad Shoe returned. No, make that Really Bad Shoe. He gave up six that inning, and you knew the writing was on the wall. In a final act of sacrifice, he went back out for the sixth and gave up two more. After the game, he was DFAed with the 8.06 you describe. So, as we agree, he needed to go. But I honestly think he did better than he's given credit for. He was quite close to having five quality starts out of his first nine. I bolded those above. But for comparison, using a similar generous interpretation of quality starts, Berrios also only had five quality-ish starts out of his first nine. It's just that Bad Shoe was so very, very bad. And again, I think part of that was Rocco knowing that Shoemaker could handle being thrown to the wolves in a way that others couldn't. And then the wheels fell off, but by that time, they had also bought time for Ober and gotten other guys healthy. Again, I'm agreeing with you and pretty much everyone else that he needed to go. But that's the Paul Harvey Rest of the Story. And sorry -- I wasn't planning to go into that much detail, but I was intrigued in trying to reconstruct what actually happened.

My bad -- I thought I'd read somewhere that Rooker didn't have options, which seemed odd, but I hadn't looked it up. Perhaps I was thinking of Gordon. Then yeah, off to St. Paul for Rooker.

Major enough to get him to the IL, particularly given that he doesn't have options?

I think I was the fellow, and that is indeed a reason for three catchers. But, as Mike notes a couple posts later, that may not be reason in itself, in that pinch hitting for the pitcher's spot is an option on the rare occasions when it happens. That's particularly the case when you get to the relievers, most of whom don't pitch multiple innings. And, at least until you run out of guys, it means you can pinch hit situationally, using the singles guy when you need a leadoff hitter and an RBI guy with runners on base. There's also the double switch option. The one limitation here is that there may not be many bodies on the bench, particularly if one or more guys have already been used. But your second part -- bad defense from Sanchez -- may be more reason to carry Godoy. If they are wanting to give Jeffers full days off, I can see many occasions when Godoy would get the last couple innings, coming in after Sanchez appears likely to have gotten his last AB. That's assuming that Godoy is actually good defensively -- I have no idea if that's the case.

I wonder if the "nine or more outs" also speaks to being able to use him at the ML level before he's "fully stretched out," particularly with the benefit of two more relief pitchers available.

Yep. Or to think of it another way. Buxton starts nearly every game in CF, with Gordon getting Buxton's (hopefully very few) days off. Ushela, Arraez, Polanco, Correa get the vast majority of starts at 3B-2B-SS. Think of it as a line. Whichever name gets the day off, the positions stay in that order. Urshela plays 3B, Arraez 3B/2B, Polanco 2B/SS, Correa SS. Gordon is the emergency guy here as well. In a similar line that goes C-DH-1B-LF-RF, Jeffers (C)-Sanchez (C/DH)-Sano (DH/1B)-Kirilloff (1B/LF)-Larnach (LF/RF)-Kepler (RF) get the vast majority of starts. Godoy gets a handful of starts, but is mostly the emergency guy and defensive replacement for Sanchez. So yeah, Larnach's on the team. Miranda and Rooker are in AAA until an injury. Miranda then slots in the 3B-2B-SS line and Rooker in the latter. And 15 pitchers.

If by being first, you're the odd one, I'll be the even one and make it two with this perspective. Arraez's career OPS+ of 113 is quite Sanchezian in nature, and only one point above Sano's "slump" year in 2021. Solid, but not worth building the lineup around. But Heiny's right, above, in saying this exercise is pretty moot. Last year, they didn't use a single lineup more than three times, and Rocco's never used the same lineup more than seven times in a season. Molitor is actually pretty similar in having 137 and 145 different batting orders in his last two seasons. Also, for what it's worth, in the last 35 games of the season last year, when they were more or less at full strength, Buxton batted first or second in virtually every game he played. SImilarly, Arraez batted leadoff in the vast majority of his starts in that window of time.

I'm going to approach this from a numbers/roster management perspective. My preference is to trade for a starter vs. signing a free agent, for two reasons. First, what's out there on the trade market is better. Second, any free agent signed at this point is going to need significant ramp-up time anyway, so they aren't going to be available until mid- to late-April. The 40-man is full, with the potential exception of being able to move Enlow to the 60-man. A "normal" roster has 13 pitchers and 13 position players these days. However, a 28-man roster seems to be a given for the first few weeks of the season. The extra two spots will almost certainly go to pitchers, leaving us with a 15-man staff. That's a one, followed by a five -- 15. According to MLB.com, there are currently 17 pitchers on the 40-man roster who haven't already been optioned to the minors. If you assume that Gray, Bundy, Ober and Ryan are in the rotation, that leaves Alcala, Cotton, Duffey, Duran, Jax, Moran, Rogers, Romero, Smith, Stashak, Thielbar, Thorpe, and Winder -- 13 guys for the remaining 11 spots on the roster. In the first three times through the rotation, the No. 5 spot gets the Dodgers, Boston and The Team That Plays in the Monument to Cement, But Whom Shall Not Be Named (hereinafter, "TTTPitMtCBWSNBN"). While I'm cautious by nature and would like to see Winder get more AAA innings in general, I'm especially cautious about throwing him to those guys for his first three major league starts. I'm going to say it, folks. Bullpen. Even if the first three games bring less than stellar starts, a bullpen should be relatively rested for games 5, 10 and 15. Not only do I not want to throw Winder into the matchups against LAD, Bos and TTTPitMtCBWSNBN, but those games are a recipe for bullpen. With an 11-man bullpen, you play matchups throughout the game, likely no one seeing a batter twice. And if they score big, as they are likely to do, hello Lewis Thorpe -- take one for the team. (Also, I try to sandwich the bullpen game by putting Gray and Bundy in the Nos. 1 and 4 spots, with the hope of them saving the bullpen to at least some extent.) In that scenario, I roll Winder off to St. Paul, where he pitches a managed workload (60-75 pitches?) that saves his bullets. By the end of April, when the roster goes back to 26, he would be able to come up and get teams like Detroit, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Oakland, Houston, teams with a greater opportunity for early success than having to go against LAD, Bos and TTTPitMtCBWSNBN. With Gray, Bundy, Ober and Ryan in the rotation, the number of innings they threw last year, and the inevitable injuries that happen, it's a given that we are going to be calling on additional guys to move into the rotation throughout the year. I'd rather have the next guys up be someone who is coming off success at AAA than someone who is struggling. If that's Winder, great. But if he's been struggling, I'd rather have that struggling happen east of the river, rather than west. Said another way, waiting until late-April allows the No. 5 spot to go to the best of Winder, Balazovic, Sands, etc., all guys that we are likely to see at some point this year if they stay healthy. Waiting to bring Winder or one of the others up also provides a little time for some guys to pitch themselves off the 40-man, etc., which will be necessary for future roster management, including if they want to use Coulombe, Gonzalez, Minaya and Smeltzer if they've shown themselves worthy. So yeah, I send him down, with the hope of debuting in the Detroit or Baltimore series in late April/early May. But I still try to trade for a starter or two.

From what I've seen the past few years, very few teams use the off days to skip No. 5. Last year, for example, only seven MLB starters had 33 starts. That's what the No. 1 and 2 guys get if they simply start every five GAMES and stay healthy. If teams were using every five days, they'd get up closer to 36 or so (36 x 5 = 180-day season). And with Gray atop the rotation, he's not so dominant that you're seeking to maximize his starts. And based on last year, I'm not sure you can even expect that. He had 12 starts on four days rest, 7 on five and 4 on six, so he's not really used to it. Also, that's only 23 starts, totaling 135 innings -- I'm guessing the FO will be ecstatic if he gets to 30 starts. And even if they did want to maximize Gray starts, using this approach means that you also have to do it with other guys as well, so it means prioritizing Ryan, et al., staying on an every five DAY rotation. Given that pretty much everyone is going to be on some sort of innings limitation, I don't see them wanting to do that either. If anything, they'll be looking for days to squeeze in an extra day's rest. So even if they COULD skip No. 5 more often, I don't think they will. Coming up with five starters to begin the year is challenge enough. The bigger challenge I'm seeing at this point, however, is how to manage the innings of starters Nos. 6, 7, 8, etc., so that they still have innings left when guys above them hit their limits. Does that mean that the St. Paul guys go only a few innings in their early starts so they have innings left in August and September, for example? Ultimately, I'm bracing myself for reading the wrath of TD readers as folks rail on the pitching schedule. I could still see there being a trade or signing, but even if Cueto signs now, for example, he's likely not going to be ready the first time or so through the lineup. I'm guessing we'll be seeing different combinations of openers and stacking at various points in the season.

So much to agree with here, Doc, particularly the two comments I snipped. I will stake a claim to have been saying, “I told you so,” to TD, however, in sensing there was more to come. That’s part of the new definition of the “Twins Way,” to my observation. Patience seems to be part of the mission statement. Consider this: In a “normal” year, there are 120 days from Dec. 1 to Opening Day. They lost most of that, but picked up a week on the back end. They essentially have 25 days to do 100 days of work. Said another way, if one day equals four in the post lockout world and we’ve got about 17 days to opening day, it’s kinda like Feb. 1 in a “normal” year. And Odorizzi and Donaldson are two excellent moves they made after that date in past years. So… Prediction No. 1: There will be a move for a legit starting pitcher (and note that by “legit,” I’m looking at it from the end of the season, not from what those of us on TD think on Opening Day.) Prediction No. 2: It will be someone completely off the TD radar. Many, if not most, of their best moves were ones that took us by surprise. Prediction No. 3: It won’t cost as much as we think. I circle back to Palacios for Odorizzi. They haven’t put this much effort into building minor league assets to give them away. Those are general comments to TD. To you, Doc, a life coach comment from an Iowa native who’s lived in northern Indiana my adult life and who travels to Nebraska and South Dakota regularly for work. ? Don’t even think of moving here! Appreciate what you have. Thanks to clouds off the lake, we say goodbye to the sun on Nov. 1 and welcome it back on April 1. And thanks to the moisture in those clouds, 10 degrees here feels so much worse than 10 degrees there — it goes to the bone. I was in Sioux Falls in late February, and I’ll take 10 below there over 10 above here. The grass isn’t greener on this side of the fence. It’s buried under a pile of gray slush.

Dude — way to ruin my supper. For at least a couple hours, I’d gotten Thursday’s debacle out of my mind, and you had to remind me. I will say, however, that it was pretty awesome to be with 15,000 of my closest friends at CHA Friday afternoon for the women’s blowout. (And besides, I appear to be about 10 years older than you, so consider the stress I’m dealing with. I guess I do have on you that I’m old enough to remember Steve Waite’s drive to the basket against Georgetown.) Back to the nachos.

Hopefully Gladden handles this better than Les Nessman:

That’s why a lot of managers are reluctant to use their catcher as a DH. So, for example, Garver only DHed in three games last year, when his bat would have made him a candidate to do so more regularly. I didn’t go to the bother of looking it up, but my hunch is that it might have happened at times when Astudillo was on the roster.

Yes, but you lose the DH, so the pitcher now hits in Player B’s spot in the order.

Correct. 59-61 over the final 120, so basically a .500 team over the final three-quarters of the year.

I was optimistic about Rortvedt as well, but I think you’re right, jmlease1. To build on this: Player A 98 AB in his first major league season, with a .169/.281/.510 and 41 OPS+. Career .241/.355/.672 slash line in five minor league seasons. Player B 155 AB in his first major league season, with .197/.296/.533 and 46 OPS+ Career .221/.340/.644 in many minor league seasons, because he’s now 38 years old. Sanchez may not be our answer at catcher (and we don’t know what’s still to happen in the transaction world), but folks, let’s not get too hung up about losing Player A (Rortvedt), just like we weren’t too hung up about losing Player B (Drew Butera).

I had several 0-for-14 strings. Often back-to-back.