IndianaTwin

What is your definition of "go deeper"? The Twins have already gone deeper than other teams. The MLB average was 5.2 innings last year. Take out the two games started by Openers and the Twins averaged 5.4. Digging deeper, Ryan averaged 5.9 innings per start last year and Lopez and Ober 5.8 innings each. Paddack averaged 5.2 innings and odds would suggest he'll go longer in a second year removed from TJS. The rookies averaged less than 5 innings, in part because of load management, particularly after they fell out of the race. It's logical to think that they will go longer this year as well. Only four teams averaged more than 5.5 innings last year but it seems very feasible the Twins will be above that. It wouldn't be out of line to add a paragraph to the "The Good" section of the OP noting that the strength of the Twins rotation means their bullpen shouldn't be as stressed as others.

From the OP: Young starters may find themselves put to the test for the Twins this year, and that's always a risky proposition. We saw this play out in the late stage of 2024 after Ryan went down. The dependability of the rotation was greatly diminished as Woods Richardson posted a 5.23 second-half ERA, Matthews took his lumps, and starters generally struggled to get through five innings on a regular basis, increasing the bullpen's burden. Post All-Star Break, starters made it through five innings in 42 of 68 games. That's 62 percent of the time, closer to two-thirds of the time than half, which is what "generally" implies.

And for what it's worth, MLB Network's "experts" who were measuring the same thing listed Correa 42nd, Buxton 68th and Royce Lewis 82nd. The inconsistency makes me think that what it's worth is... "not much."

Nor are there 13 shortstops better.

But it really throws off a hitter's timing.

Exactly. Keep him. Use him in the lowest leverage situations at the beginning of the year. By the time you run into a couple of these scenarios, you well may have reached the point where a) he's been good enough to move a notch or two up the ladder or b) he's demonstrated under a truer test that he's not worth stashing for the whole year. It's not like the decision can only be made before March 26 or after October 1. (And to anticipate a comment that's likely to come, I agree that you can't have a "low-leverage reliever." But there are always low-leverage situations that need to be covered by someone and it's logical to use the lowEST-leverage reliever there.)

You mean like Lugo's 4.97, Ragan's 5.79, Greene's 5.63, Wheeler's 5.00 or Cease's 4.61? Established starters are notorious for using spring training to work on specific things.

The perception among White Sox fans was that Grifol was horrible, so replacing him should help. But overall, the MLB version of the team actually looks worse than it did last year, particularly if Robert is traded.

Yep. I'm ready for Opening Day as well.

Typo. Ober is a hair under 23. Ryan's average is affected by the last start, when he was pulled after two innings because of injury. Take out that start and he's just over 24 batters per start. Another way to frame the difference between them and SWR, for example, is to say that those three were given the chance to work through the 3-4-5-6 part of the order more often than SWR, which makes sense. It's not so much saying that the Big Three can't extend to go through the bottom of the order -- any pitcher should be able to do that -- but that they can extend to go through the middle more often than a weaker starter. (And since we on TD should never miss out on a chance to pile on Paddack (/sarcasm emoji), we should also look at him. Oops, take out the start when he was pulled because of injury and he averages 23.2 batters, which means he's between Ryan and Ober. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to discount him as an option for length? 😀)

Thanks. Is this the number of plate appearances for the starters? If so, that's going to be skewed, since bottom of the order guys tend to get pinch hit for more often. Best to look at total plate appearances from each spot in the lineup. Or, is the third numerical column the average number of at bats from each spot in the lineup. If you look at the next column over, you'll see that it's roughly .11 at bats more per spot in the lineup going up and down from the 5th spot in the order. And since .11 is essentially 1/9, that makes sense. And as noted in my previous comment, it does skew a bit to larger differences at the bottom (about .12 per spot). There's rounding involved, as demonstrated by the fifth batter averaging 4.24 compared to the average 4.22, but showing only 0.01 as its difference.

Each of 162 games has to have a last batter, so if you divide them evenly, it works out to 18 PAs per spot. In actuality, it should skew a little to have slightly fewer games end with a batter at the top of the order than at the bottom, since a top of the order is less likely to make an out. I'm not sure how much difference that makes in actuality, so I think people have just used the 18. I like the Wallner-Correa-Buxton-Larnach top of the order that sounds like it's been used several times during spring training, at least against right handers. Amongst Wallner, Correa, Buxton, another reason to have Wallner bat first is that he strikes out the most. If both Wallner and Correa make outs 61 percent of the time, but Wallner strikes out significantly more often, better to have him first. Said another way, Correa is more likely to move Wallner along the basepaths with a ball-in-play out than Wallner is to move Correa along. Additionally, if Wallner is a little faster than Correa, he's more likely to take an extra base on a hit than Correa is. (I realize there's more to baserunning than speed -- maybe Correa is actually better at taking the extra base.)

Last year, “pushing Lopez through the fifth” probably wouldn’t have been that great of an idea, given that the six times he didn’t make it through the fifth he had given up 6, 5, 3, 7, 5 and 7 runs. Lopez is pretty much the definition of refuting “Rocco doesn’t let pitchers face a lineup a third time.” He pitched to an average of 24.2 batters in his starts, which means on average he pitched to the Nos. 1-6 a third time. And further, Ober faced an average of 22.9 hitters, so basically one less. Take out the game in which he got hurt and Ryan was just over 24 batters per game. More accurate seems to be, “Rocco doesn’t let his weaker starters face a lineup a third time.” I don’t have a problem with that.

I think they should eat most of his salary and trade him for Lewis. 😀

If they've sent Funderburk down and haven't yet returned Castellano, it seems a lock that he's made the team. If Topa does start the season on the IL, Castellano is all that's remaining, right? (I don't mean that disparagingly -- I hope they keep Castellano, even if it means optioning someone else for the brief time that is needed until the first injury occurs.)

Good old BIPGAF. I once tried to get my fantasy league to add (Home Runs + Balks + Errors)/K as a pitching category, just for the acronym, but they wouldn’t bite.

I don’t about not needing any, because stuff happens, but the fact that we are down to signing only France and Bader suggests they are needing low-rent guys less and less. I think you could do a similar exercise on the pitching side and see that the lonely low-rent guys this year are Coulombe and Tonkin.

And wasn’t it fun?

1. OP suggests that Buxton and Correa will regularly run at DH in the name of maintenance. Last year, Correa got one start and Buxton five. If they are in the lineup, they will play defense. I can see Lewis getting a decent number of starts at DH, however, given that his defense isn't as outstanding. 2. As @Road trip notes, if Bader plays a lot of LF, that sends Larnach to the DH role on a regular basis.

To be a Shakespeare Owl or not to be, that is the question.

We talk about the importance of starting pitching depth, because they will use at least 8-12 starters over the course of the year. Similarly, they have 15 non-catchers on the 40-man roster to cover the 11 non-catching roster spots. They will need more than that. If healthy, he will get a callup at some point.

That the top seven SPs are all healthy.

Probably spread over a lot of guys, but I would predict Larnach and Miranda, with Larnach probably getting more because of handedness. Vazquez only DHed twice. Jefferson did a lot on days Vazquez caught, but it rarely happened the other way around.

I think we're not that far off from each other, CHP. You're seeing that there's an argument to be made for using him in the rotation, and I see the argument for not doing so. One of the other posters has commented several times on these decisions being more of a dial than a switch, which I think is a helpful comment. In the sentence I bolded, my preference is turn the dial a smidge further and include Paddack among the first seven, letting the others fight for 8, 9 and 10. Let's hope that Matthews' tweak today is minor, but it's an indicator of how quickly that seven can turn to six or six turn to five, etc. This isn't directed at you, but I disagree with the notion that Paddack hasn't seen any success as a starter. Are you familiar with Bill James' "Game Score"? It's a system where a pitcher starts with 50 points and then you add points for things they do well (innings completed, strikeouts, etc.) and subtract points for when they do something bad (hits, runs, walks, etc.). I don't know that it's been tested in any precise way, but apparently it's seen as valid enough to be put on baseball-reference.com. And there's some face validity in that you look at a game with a high score and it's easy to say, "Yeah, he pitched well" or a game with a low score and say, "Yeah, that stunk." It does measure what it purports to measure. I don't know that it's precise enough to delineate between 71 and 70, but if you look at games that score a 70 and compare them to games that score a 60, you'll almost always choose the game with the 70. Anyway, if you look at the 4-6 best starts from all the starters, it shows Ober having the best starts (not surprising). It also shows Paddack's best starts being on par with Ryan's and Lopez's and better than SWR's, Festa's and Matthews. If you look at the actual pitching lines on some of Paddack's starts, they really are some of the best starts of the season for the Twins. The issue is one of consistency, since he also had some of the poorest of the season. I think it's a worthwhile risk to see if during the second year removed from TJS he can have a higher percentage of good starts. I say "higher percentage," because I'm under no illusion that he's going to hold up to 32 starts. If he has even the 17 starts he had last year, but 12 or 13 are good compared to last year's eight or so and six or seven are as good as his best four last year, I'd be pleased with that from a guy starting the year as the No. 4 or 5. It seems to me that's the risk the Twins are willing to take as well.

Didn't say he will. Didn't say he should. Just said that the pitch clock rules particularly help a player of his type, noted that 25 per year isn't that outlandish when you think of it in weekly terms and observed that if he does it enough to be seen as a threat, it has other advantages as well.