IndianaTwin

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.

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.