chpettit19

Dan Hayes reporting that Kirilloff is set to play 9 innings again for the Saints today. First time playing 9 innings back to back days. Would think that's a significant step in his return.

To me it's either Skenes, or the best bat available. It looks like the most likely option will be one of the high school bats, and I'm good with that. The Twins have a wave of prospects currently hitting the top of the minors, and the majors. Clark or Jenkins could take the spot at the top of the next wave. If any of Skenes, Crews, or Langford fall I'd be sprinting to the podium to take them. I don't see any of them getting skipped by 2 teams, though, unless 2 teams really fall in love with the HS kids. This feels like a draft with a bit of a drop after the first 5 so it's nice to see the Twins be in that 5 hole. By all accounts right now the Twins are going to have the chance to draft a really nice prospect with perennial all star upside.

Duran is unavailable today. Why would he not use the guy he knows can't pitch today instead of someone who could? Duran needs to take care of an immigration situation that required him to travel today. Doesn't seem that puzzling.

I'd be fine with them DFAing Gordon to call up Kirilloff today. But my guess is, as someone else stated, Kirilloff's callup is more likely to coincide with Buxton starting to play the OF some. Means Gordon probably has 2 or 3 more weeks to show he can hit. Or someone gets hurt and Kirilloff takes their spot. I think Kirilloff immediately becomes the best pure hitter on the team so I'd like to see him called up sooner than later, but I don't expect the Twins to suddenly break their very cautious take to injuries. I am very happy to finally have real decisions for the FO to make for both the rotation and position players. Been a long while since that was the case. I hope they really let play dictate decisions as we get into the heart of summer. It's still very early so I get not making big decisions on someone like Gordon (I'm just not a believer), but they're going to have to make some moves with this depth as they get into July, and make decisions based on who gives them the best chance to win baseball games now, and moving forward.

Max has been looking a little rejuvenated since his return from the IL. I don't disagree that this is the classic MN goodbye situation, and I would be absolutely shocked if he's on the roster in 2024. To me, the interesting situation is the trade deadline decision this year. As always, much of that comes down to roster health. But if Kirilloff and Lewis are both back and healthy I could see them trying to flip Kepler for a lottery ticket at the deadline. I very much like Kepler hitting down in the order like he was last night. He's been a good hitter since his return from the IL. If he can keep this up in the 7-9 holes of the order he's a useful player. The question is just how much the young guys are able to push him aside by the trade deadline. Will be interesting to see how the summer plays out for Max. I hope he makes it a hard decision for the FO to move on this year, but don't think there's anything he can realistically do to have a spot on the Twins roster come 2024.

It looks like he's making much better swing decisions, and getting the ball in the air more. He's chasing only 22.1% of the time, compared to his career norms in the 30% range, and league average of 28.4%. Still a lot of swing and miss in his game as he's whiffing a career high 35.4 percent of the time (league average 24.7%). And his GB% is down at 30.2% after being in the upper 30s for his first 3 shots in the majors. Better swing decisions are certainly a sustainable change, and this may be him figuring it out. I hope it is. Good for him. His challenge will probably be to not start pressing when he runs into struggles and fall back into his chase heavy ways. But if he can keep doing damage when he connects there'll be a spot for him on an MLB roster. Another red flag that he's likely to come back to earth is that his barrel rate is 23.3%. League average is 6.8%. Ohtani is 14.7. Judge was 26.5 last year, and 22.0 this year. Trout has never had a season over 20%. So, unless you think Rooker is now amongst the elite of the elite sluggers, he's likely to come back to earth. His previous seasons (SSS) were 14.3, 12.6, and 4.8%. I don't see him maintaining Judge-esque barrel rates all season, but I hope he does. I enjoy a good "late bloomer" story. On another note, I'll say there's a ton of variables outside of a former Twins prospect becoming successful later when you're talking about if the Twins made the right decision about letting them go in one fashion or another. It's definitely not just a "well he succeeded later so the Twins should've kept him" sort of equation. 40-man roster decisions, what the other player they'd have had to give up in a trade would've been, how long after they left, and how many other teams were they on, before they succeeded, did the players who replaced them on the Twins 40-, and 26-man, rosters play better while someone like Rooker was still struggling elsewhere are all questions that factor into "grading" these kinds of decisions.

I don't think Ober can hold up to a starter's workload, and I'm not interested in having a guy in the rotation who can't get through 5 innings every time out. I think Varland can throw 6 innings while Ober is a 4 or 5 inning guy. Or Ober will be shutdown at some point and they'll have to rearrange the rotation to accommodate that. I'd just prefer putting in the guy who's not significantly worse, and is less likely to cause significant shifts in the rest of the pitching staff. I fully expect it to be Ober who takes over, and I'm not mad about it. Just not what I'd do.

He was at 91-92 to start the season so I'm not sure we can tie it to the surgery. But his last 2 starts have seen that drop to 90, and then below 90 yesterday. I don't think that's the surgery, but it's quite possibly something health-wise. He sure didn't look comfortable yesterday. Even if he's 89-90 when he comes back I'm not that concerned about his velo, it's his command that matters. He's never averaged more than 92 on his fastball in any big league season. Being at 90 isn't much of a deal. But if he doesn't have control of his splitter, and slider, he's toast. I think finding his control is far more important than throwing 91-92 again. He can survive at 90, but needs control.

My hope is that Solano can hold on until Lewis is ready. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the Twins thought, too. He's a horrid defender, but if he's only playing 1B against lefties for the next month and a half until Lewis is good to go I think his bat can make him serviceable. But I think he gets released without much concern at some point. Don't think they fight to keep him around longer than he's useful.

I didn't know where you were going to go with that, but I like the analogy. Well done, sir.

I think the Twins using him basically exclusively at 2B the last year plus should tell us a lot. They try to get all kinds of guys work all over the field. But they're not doing it with him. He played 15 games in LF in 2021, and they haven't sent him back. He's not a good infielder, but they haven't wanted to put him back in the OF. To me, that says he can't read a fly ball. I've never seen him play OF, so that could be completely wrong, but if you want to get a guy up a level, and they're a bad infielder, you'd put him in the OF if they're at all ok there. Them not seeming to even be considering it says a lot. Only other thing I can think of is they don't think he can beat out the Larnach/Wallner/Kirilloff group of lefty corner bats. Which would also be a bad sign. He'll be fun to see work through the struggles of adjusting to major league pitchers. They are going to challenge him, and he's going to have to make them pay. If he can't, he becomes Sano/Gallo 2.0. And we all know how those types of hitters go over around these parts. He appears to have a really nice approach at the plate so it'll just come down to being able to make pitchers pay for challenging him early. Will be fun to watch him get his chance to show he can do it.

One could make the argument that the comfort level in SWR is the bigger question. Taking Maeda out of the rotation puts you at 6 guys I think most of us are comfortable with on some level. They're going to need more than 6 starters to get through the year. If people are comfortable with SWR you have 7 guys. That's a little better as you'd hopefully be limiting the number of starts by the Sanchez/DeLeon/Rodriguez/Dobnak group. Unless people think 2023 is the year Gray doesn't hit the IL, Ober throws 175 innings, and Mahle's shoulder isn't a concern at all they shouldn't be pushing too hard to remove anyone from the rotation. It does put them in a tougher spot since Maeda likely isn't as talented as Ober and/or Varland at this point in his career, but if he's not completely toast I don't think it's wise to put yourself in a spot where you only have 6 guys you're comfortable with starting games when your team is built around your starting pitching.

Nobody said analytics were the "end all be all." But if you don't use them you won't succeed in today's game. And it's not hard to see that. Why do you assume Yaz 2.0, Wade, and Rooker weren't guys who got their chances because of analytics? Wade wasn't claimed, he was traded for. And he was traded for because of analytics. You say analytics are bad in Rooker's case because he'd be getting platooned, yet use one of the most platooned players in baseball in Wade as another example. The Giants wanted Wade because of his patience, and ability to get on base, because that's what the analytics say is important. In that "great 2021 season" he had 339 PAs against righties. 42 against lefties. I mean he's an absolute analytic darling. Rooker keeps getting chances because of his batted ball data. He hits the ball hard, and analytics say that's important so he keeps getting chances. And I hope he makes the most out of this one. I don't know enough about Yaz to speak on him. But 2 out of 3 of your anti-analytics examples are literally arguments for analytics and disprove your point. I'm happy to go stat by stat through things with you, but all you're doing is showing you don't really understand what analytics are doing, or the points Kenny, and others, are trying to make. You just don't like the word analytics. Pitcher Wins, and RBIs, aren't "useful" because we have better stats that actually describe what you want them to. What you really care about is a pitcher "keeping their team in the game," or a hitter "getting clutch hits." Wins and RBIs aren't actually showing you those things the way you want them to be. Domingo German giving up 6 runs in 6 innings today shouldn't be something you look at and say "dang, sure impressed by German today," but he got a Win! That "stat" isn't useful if it doesn't actually tell you anything about the player's performance. As you said, it's something the agents use to try to get more money in negotiations. Jacob deGrom famously has terribly low win totals because his teams never score him runs. He was the best pitcher in baseball for half a decade. His Win total wouldn't make you think he was anything even above average. So, yeah, us "stat guys" wouldn't use wins to determine who's good and who's not. Because, as a stat, wins doesn't actually do that. RBIs is really people wanting to know if guys are good at driving in runs. A counting stat there doesn't tell you that because there's too many variables outside their control that effect the stat. What you really want is to know their batting average with runners in scoring position. We track that now. It's easily accessible. So, yeah, us "stat guys" wouldn't use RBIs to determine who is good and who is not. Because, as a stat, RBIs doesn't actually do that. A team building a lineup based on RBI totals would lose to a team building a lineup based on BA w/RISP. So why should we care about RBI when we have a stat that can actually tell us what we want to know? Other than the history of the game, and nostalgia? Those stats aren't telling you what you want them to be, but you don't care because you just don't like the term analytics so you'd rather stick with worse data. To each their own. I'd love to know what inside info you have about Rocco's communication with the players about their playing time. I'd love to know how you "know for a fact" that the players don't know. Always looking for more knowledge.

I thought his first 2 starts were fine. Nothing to write home about, but not the end of the world either. I think a trip to the IL with some rehab starts is the answer, and I'm fine if those 2 more starts he gets are rehab starts and kind of determine his place moving forward.

And most of the "bean counters" who run/work in baseball ops were "in the field," and have common sense. Being smart, and good with numbers, doesn't automatically make you unathletic. Most of the folks in baseball ops departments played college ball (baseball or softball), a good number of them played professionally as well. Billy Beane was a first round pick. I'm not sure why there's this idea that the people running teams now never played the game. It's simply not true. I mean, that Rocco guy I hear so much about was a pretty decent player. You know which team doesn't really have many "stats guys?" The Colorado Rockies. You know which teams have the most "stats guys?" The Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, Rays, and Braves. I promise you the "stats guys" are hired to win games.

The IL makes a lot of sense to me. And his 2 starts that I'd give him can come in AAA then. To me, the question isn't so much whether he can go 5/6 innings vs 1/2 innings, it's if he can go at all. I'm not worried about his stamina, or velo, I'm worried about his control. Without it he's toast, and then he can just have Pagan's 2 inning mop up role.

I'd actually go Varland instead of Ober, but Kenta needs an IL stint. Generally speaking I'd give Kenta more starts, but if he takes a week or 2 of just pens and rest before making a few rehab stints I'll go off whatever those rehab stints suggest. I'm not sure the pen is a great option for him, though. His stuff isn't going to play up there, and, to me, the question isn't a matter of 5/6 innings vs 1/2 innings for him. If he's good I'd have him in the rotation again. If he isn't, he wouldn't really be part of my plans beyond mop up duty instead of Pagan.

We can't. I'd give him 2 more starts. And the other thing many won't agree with me on is that I'd give his spot to Varland, not Ober, if he stumbles in his next 2 starts.

I was using all of April because I knew the games weren't the same. You guys are right. I am wrong. I admit it. On another note, you definitely shouldn't pay attention to us "stat guys." All those billionaire owners hired people like us instead of people like you because "stat guys" have no idea what they're doing, or how to win baseball games. No sense in paying attention to the stat guys.

No. The argument has always been that the narrative to start last year was that starters needed to work out of their own jams, but today the narrative is that Rocco needs to pull guys before they blow up, which was counter to what the complaints were last year. Then you brought up that you were concerned early about the bullpen early, and I've pointed out that the bullpen is being used the same amount now so if you were worried last year you should be worried this year, and shouldn't have wanted Maeda pulled early because it'd destroy the bullpen and the season will be doomed again. Unless you weren't really concerned with bullpen usage last April? I definitely had Gray's timeline wrong. He got hurt even earlier than I'd thought. But Ryan and Bundy were still going more than 5 innings a start, and only Archer wasn't going 5. They also piggybacked Archer with Winder early on so the pen wasn't being used extra in those games.

They had 2 relievers over 10 IP in April last year (Duran and Winder). They already have 2 this year and Moran at 9.2. Not exactly burning them out drastically more than this year. Or, should we be worried about the bullpen wearing out already? I mean, after today, they're only 4 innings below where they were for last April, and you were worried about them then. But shouldn't have been worried about it today because they just aren't using the pen so much.

Not early, so no, it isn't correct. The revisionist history around here is unbelievable. 3 of the 5 guys in the rotation were going 6 or 7 innings a start in April. The Twins bullpen threw the 16th most innings in baseball in April. It is simply ignoring the actual reality of the start of last year to suggest they were going 12-15 outs a night.

That paragraph is flat out untrue, because they weren't being asked to get 12 outs a night. Ryan, Gray, and Paddack were all going 6 or 7 innings a start early in the season. But that fact was ignored all last year so why not continue to ignore it now? You very well may have started being concerned about that early. But there were many who weren't concerned about that and were complaining about bullpen use in April. FYI, the Twins were 16th in baseball in bullpen innings last April. Clearly the complaints were that they were really, really overusing those arms by being right smack dab in the middle of bullpen usage. Rocco should be sued for how much he overworked those guys.

Totally a fair argument if it was July or August when the "quick hook" complaints started. But it wasn't. Gigantic thing you're ignoring is that the complaint about the quick hooks wasn't about the pen until the pen fell apart halfway through the year. The complaint began in April during Bundy and Archer's starts and was about not letting starters work out of their own jams. It had nothing to do with the pen. It was just a general complaint that Rocco was babying starters and not letting them go a 3rd time through the order. But, now, today, the complaint is that Rocco should've known better than to let Maeda stay in there after he'd seemingly righted the ship in a 4 hitter 3rd inning. He should've just known and taken him out. If the arguments made here were that Rocco should've gotten Headrick up sooner, that's totally fine. But they're not. At least not all of them. The arguments are that he should've taken him out of the game after the 3rd. Not because fans actually thought that, but because we love 20/20 hindsight around here. Pulled after, or during, the 2nd? Ok, can make an argument. Pulled earlier in the 4th? Sure, I would've. Pulled after the 3rd and not allowed to take the mound in the 4th? Hindsight and nothing more.

Yes, there were lots of people asking for Archer to pitch more. The idea that letting your starters work out of their own jams is what's best for the team was all over these boards all last season. Are we really going to pretend that wasn't the case? Those of us who spent the entire season explaining that Rocco was doing it to starters who weren't of the quality of Gray, Ryan, and Paddack were shouted down and told it's some organization wide "3rd time through the lineup" masterplan. We continued to say it was Rocco, and the team, attempting to avoid blowup innings by pitchers who had a high likelihood of falling apart after the 4th or 5th inning. We were told that's not how you should manage a team. But today the story is that Rocco should've managed a pitcher with a high likelihood of a blowup inning by taking him out before he had the chance to fall apart. And now you're telling me they're different things. They aren't. Kenta went scoreless in the 3rd. Cruised right through it. But Rocco was supposed to take him out after that because the likelihood of him blowing up in the 4th was too high. Even though I've been told for a year that that's not how he should manage. I do think he was slow to get Headrick up in the 4th. But pretending that he should've taken him out after the 3rd is 100% 20/20 hindsight like that other poster suggested, and is 100% the opposite of what the same posters were saying last year when that's what he did.