IndianaTwin

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.

I do think that the pitch clock rules give a guy like him an extra advantage in comparison to others. He can be a little more aggressive trying to guess timing on pitchers getting low on the pitch clock, knowing that even if he guesses wrong, he has a better chance than others of nabbing the base anyway. If he steals even once per week, he's at 25+. And the threat of him stealing is going to get better pitches for the batter to hit.

Yes. I've said this before, but even if he was healthy, he's not going to generate a huge number of steals because of his lack of opportunities. He's got so much power that teams have to play him deep. With them playing deep, what are singles for normal people turn into legged-out doubles for him.

I'm probably coming across as a bigger Paddack fan that I actually am. I'm mainly a fan of flexibility. Is it realistic to expect 160 innings from Festa? Because that's what it seems people are saying by having him in the rotation at the beginning of the year. They think Festa is in a position to last the season (i.e., 32 starts). And since he (or Rocco) would get lambasted if he only averages five innings per start, we're really talking 170 innings or more (or even the 167 from Ober's 2023). Or people are convinced that if Festa doesn't make it through the year, one of the other rookies will be ready to step in. I'm optimistic that one of them could be ready, but the road is also littered with can't-miss prospects who did. Maybe there's more examples than I realize, but it seems like Ober is the pretty rare exception of holding up for that many innings as a rookie. Matthews and Festa are also both younger than Ober was. And while still huge (at least to the 5-11, 180 pound guy I was at that age), they are not as physically strong as Ober was/is. I agree that there's no need to artificially limit the number of innings Festa throws. And that's not what I'm suggesting with the MiLB starts. I'm suggesting that if he's not needed with the Twins, you might as well save a few bullets while he's in St. Paul to increase the likelihood of having more innings remaining when he does get to the majors. Similarly, I think the point in starting Ober in St. Paul was more about delaying the need for him than it was about managing innings, although I'm guessing that managing innings was probably part of the conversation. They did obviously decide at some point that he was able to take on 167 innings. It just seems doubtful to me that Festa will throw 160+ innings. Too many things happen. If he is good for even 140 innings, for example, I'd rather the MLB portion of those not start on April 1 and be depleted by September 1. Or more accurately, I'd rather they not be FORCED to start on April 1 and be FORCED to count on another rookie in September. And finally (and I do need to make this finally, since I'm supposed to be on the work clock), this whole discussion seems to come down to Paddack vs. Festa, which ignores that other pitchers can get hurt too. If Paddack is dumped or moved to the bullpen and one of Lopez/Ober/Ryan gets hurt, I'd really rather not have a rotation with three youngsters in SWR, Festa and Matthews starting the year, with a need to call up one of other rookies by the end of April when another starter goes down and still another by sometime in May.

I thought the same. Looking at career stats, it makes sense to put the HOFers at the top of the list, but it's hard to argue that Nelson Cruz wasn't the best "Opening Day DH," given what he provided in his two years in the role. But it's a fun list, including a few "yikes." I was also surprised that Jim Thome wasn't the opening day DH in either of his two seasons. He pinch hit one year and started game 2 the other.

That's why I used him as one of my examples. 😀 In essence, that's my point. Having Paddack lessens the likelihood of Dobnakian starts happening. I'm not suggesting Paddack is going to get any Cy Young votes, but I'm in the camp of "you can never have too much pitching." The Dodgers have had guys much more highly regarded than Festa and Matthews, and they've been stockpiling veterans as insurance for years (and getting bailed out by it). In the big scheme of things, I think Paddack isn't a bad option in that role.

Yes, but it's easier to manage workload in AAA starts. Ober in 2023 is a reasonable comparison. There was clamoring for him to start with the Twins over Maeda (and for the record, Ober had shown much more success in 2021 and 2022 than either Festa or Matthews has to date), Ober made four starts in St. Paul before Mahle went down, but all were on five days rest. Ober's starts totaled 17.2 innings and averaged just under 75 pitches. Mahle had made five starts during that time, totaling 25.2 innings, including that he was pulled early in his final start. AAA starts being what they are, one can likely assume that Ober's were also lower stress innings. Early season AAA starts are one step up from extended spring training (or can be treated as such). That's the type of starts I would expect Festa to make before he's called up to replace whichever pitcher goes down first -- long rest with manageable pitch counts, including getting pulled if any inning gets past 25 or so pitches.

On the depth question, I would add that I don’t think he’s taking significant starts away from Festa and Matthews. If he was gone, the likelihood of either of them starting in the rotation and turning in 32 starts is very slim, given their relatively low workloads in the past. The most Matthews has thrown in a season is 135 innings and Festa 125. Festa and Matthews are each going to get 20-25 starts (or more accurately, each will be up early enough to get 20-25 starts if they perform well). Paddack’s presence may just delay when they get their first starts. The starts Paddack is getting are primarily at the expense of someone after that, when it means that they won’t have to go to Raya, one of the others or even Dobnak as quickly.

And that's including honoring the Senator portion of the franchise. He's 12th in WAR among hitters who spent the bulk of their franchise years as a Twin. Another 3.6 WAR year like last year and he passes Tovar, Hunter and Gaetti into ninth. Four more 3.6 years and he passes Hrbek. Would that all our "busts" put up numbers like that.

A nice thing about the minors is that you can be very regular in managing workload. For example, Raya started 25 straight Fridays last year. If Canterino is being shifted to the bullpen, one wonders whether something like pitching an inning every Tuesday and Friday night would make sense. Maybe at some point you switch to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. If you keep Varland in the pen and Castellano stays around as a reliever, Canterino is something like 12th in the pecking order among relievers on the 40-man roster and that doesn't even take into account someone getting DFAed or put on the 60-day IL and being replaced one of the veterans on minor league contracts (i.e., Blewett, Ynoa). Such a ramp up could suit Canterino well for a callup later in the year if he's earned it.

Concur throughout. And not to mention that Rocco is known to let people know the night before (or early on game day) what the plan is in terms of days off. He's a communicator, so my hunch is that conversation often also includes an anticipated spot in the order. The idea that players don't know where they are hitting until a half-hour before game time is untenable. Even the 1975 Reds, who we think of as having a set lineup with a bunch of studs and where all eight starters had more than 500 plate appearances, only used its most common batting order seven times. (Granted, a lineup with Rose, Bench, Morgan, Perez, Foster and Griffey most days would win a lot of games if the order was drawn out of a hat, but the point is that lineups almost always have more variation than we realize.)

Having a .250/.260 hitter in the leadoff spot is also less of a problem when the overall MLB average is only .243. Wallner is actually a bit above average in that regard. Add in his OBP "bonus," and having a .370 OPB in the leadoff slot definitely looks good when the league average is .312.

2024 stats and career stats for Kyle Schwarber and Matt Wallner. Guess which is which. (Hint: One has played many more games than the other.) Schwarber batted leadoff in each of his starts last year. In over half of the Philly games, a guy with a 69 OPS+ batted ninth. Their next most common No. 9 hitter had a 59 OPS+. That didn't seem to stop Schwarber from putting up good RBI numbers.* In the context of a game/team that doesn't prioritize steals, having Wallner at the top isn't a bad choice at all in my opinion. Said another way, if the most common top third of the order is Wallner-Correa-Buxton, that's a pretty potent start. *And as an aside, this also shows that having a crappy guy in your lineup most days (i.e., Vazquez-ish) doesn't preclude a team from winning 95 games.

Is Matt Wallner actually leading off this spring? The headline doesn't fit the article.

I'm pretty sure their veins have been upgraded to use plasma.

Thanks for this update. It would be great if it happens. I'm not a killjoy when it comes to speculating on injuries, but if erring on the side of caution in the buildup is the plan, I don't think that's a problem. If everyone is healthy, a brief IL stint for him could be helpful for roster management. (Also, at least for me, your link is taking me back to this post, so I'm not able to read it.)

As I understand it, paying Philly a bit more would essentially be buying the ability to option him, rather than needing to keep him on the 26-man roster the whole season.

Not as new injury, but as buying a couple more weeks of rehab. If he's borderline ready, it's an okay move if it allows time for a fuller review of Castellano, for example.

What is the current assumption on Stewart? I've been reading a good likelihood of a brief IL stint. If so, that adds another opening for the bullpen.

As others have noted, it's hard to get a read on this outside the clubhouse, but these comments seem on target. As RCB notes, different people need different types of leadership. Significant in what MG says is that Buxton and Correa don't seem to have fought for the "Team Leader" title. Rather, their leadership styles seem to complement each other and they accept that in each other. In a group of 25-40 people, that's important. On MG's hitter/pitcher question, one gets the sense that Lopez is the cerebral leader of that group, bringing another dimension.

At SABR this past summer, the Twins brain trust was part of one of the panel discussions. What I was struck by was how they described their minor league development of pitchers. They said that for the first year/partial year, they largely try to keep guys in the same rhythm that they were used to and then they develop an individualized plan for each pitcher. On the surface, it looks like it’s worked very much according to plan for Raya. If you look at his game log from last year, he pitched every Friday night from April 5 to September 20. His pitch count very much shows a progression. In his first 12 games, he threw an average of 51 pitches, but even within that, you see a gradual increase. In his last 12 games, he threw an average of 71. That he gave up two earned runs in his last 20 innings and five in his last 34.1 suggests that something was working correctly.