chpettit19

They've DFA'd 4 guys, I believe. Matt Canterino, who hasn't thrown a pitch in a real game in like 3 seasons. Scott Blewett. Darren McCaughan. And Randy Dobnak, who's so overpaid no team has claimed him despite multiple DFAs over the last few years. That's 4 pitchers. 0 position players. Let's not pretend they are quick on the trigger to DFA position players. But I have no doubt that Clemens and Bride will be DFA'd at some point. No doubt at all. But they have a lot more than a month and a half worth of history telling us that they'll do everything they can to hold onto them in the name of depth no matter how horrible they play and no matter what anyone in AAA is doing. I don't think that's a controversial take at all.

Neither of them are good enough players. But one has options and one doesn't. One they would send back down without thinking twice and one they won't DFA because that's not what they do. I'm not claiming Fitzgerald is an MLB starter. I even said earlier that he's not a long-term answer. But he can come up and hit .105 for 2 weeks like Clemens and the Twins can make changes to the roster as needs change throughout the year without being so afraid of DFAing guys when a player has options.

If you refuse to DFA guys then you don't have 42, you have 40. And if the 2 guys you won't DFA are terrible and are still starting games and your refusal to DFA them is stopping you from calling up a player who may actually help, then it is a baseball decision.

Oh, I certainly don't expect them to have legitimate prospects in all positions at AAA. But Will Holland is also a glove first, non-legitimate prospect who plays SS at AAA who was already on their roster when they brought in Fitzgerald. So is Anthony Prato. Fitzgerald was them adding a 3rd SS to the roster (I'm not saying 3rd on the depth chart, just 3rd in counting). I understand the idea of org filler. And I get that that's part of Fitzgerald's role. But I don't buy this explanation as a useful one for claiming Clemens instead of calling up Fitzgerald. Once the season starts the org filler argument goes out the window for me. I don't care about the AAA roster anymore. How do you best manage your MLB roster? Fitzgerald has options and Clemens doesn't. Which, to the Twins at least, means Clemens has to stay because you can't possibly risk losing him yet, but Fitzgerald could be optioned down if another player made more sense on the roster at another point. And if you have to DFA Fitzgerald later, whatever. But instead they've boxed themselves into the Clemens corner. It's not the end of the world, but when you're doing it with multiple roster spots, it starts becoming a bigger issue, in my opinion.

Why "always take the outside disposable option before the internal?" The internal comes with options. Alvarez and Fitzgerald can be optioned to AAA while Clemens and Bride can't. So when the needs of the team change the Twins don't have to worry about DFAing guys and the dread of possibly losing these replaceable players, thus handcuffing themselves to guys like Bride and Clemens, they can simply send them down and call up a guy who better fits the roster's needs at the time. So, why "always take the outside disposable option?" Because they aren't disposing of them. They're putting them in the starting lineup.

While I don't totally disagree here, this is also a pretty big indictment of their offseason/player development/team building. We're talking late April, early May here and a pretty normal number of injuries and we're already in need of 2 waiver wire pickups over being able to call up a guy on fire in AAA because you might lose one of those waiver wire pickups? This isn't aimed at you as I don't remember you being one of these people, but this is also a good reminder for all the "we need to trade away so-and-so because we have a log jam!" people. There's no such thing as a log jam. We can't call up Carson McCusker (and I'm not saying that's the end of the world or he's Wallner 2.0 or anything) because we need Jonah Bride and Kody Clemens? Bride started yesterday. It didn't cost us the game or anything, but he's not just sitting on the bench. He's starting games. Even with Lewis and Castro back. Or Jeffers and Vazquez are starting together. We have an open starting spot that we can't fill because of Bride and Clemens. There's no such thing as a "log jam." If Ryan Fitzgerald is going to put up a .923 OPS for you while playing SS at your AAA affiliate at the age of 30 and not be good enough depth for you to risk cutting Kody Clemens, then I don't know what purpose Ryan Fitzgerald serves. Certainly not suggesting he is any sort of long-term solution, but he can't come up for a 2 week stint and hit .105 and play solid defense if needed? Why even sign him? Armando Alvarez was brought here specifically to be Jonah Bride, I thought. Isn't that why they signed him this offseason? So they had a Jonah Bride type at AAA and didn't need to be handcuffed to a Bride type at the MLB level if they didn't need to be? Even if they aren't developing enough decent talent of their own, they need to be doing a better job of signing AAA depth that makes it less of a requirement to hold onto Bride and Clemens types out of fear of having to sign you or me to play 3B next week.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, but I certainly wasn't running from the 4th through 7th innings. I gave the innings he pitched before the ninth which made it so he was unavailable to close games. Whether it was that very game or the next 2 or 3. There is no data from that time that doesn't support my conclusion. That's the point. La Russa used Eck in a way that forced him to have to rely on other guys to close games. Just like Rocco uses Duran in ways that forces him to have to rely on others to close games. I notice you haven't given any data for any of the managers you listed. I'd bet you've never actually looked any data up. I'd bet you have no idea whatsoever on what their bullpen useage actually was. You just have your memories and what you think they are. And that's good enough to convince you you know how things were done. Just like now. When I've provided 6 years worth of data proving that La Russa used 5 other guys a season to close at least a third of the games. You don't care because it doesn't match how you feel things were.

How many 4th innings has Duran ever pitched in? What's your point? I've given you 5 and 6 years worth of data that you can't refute so you want to focus on 4th innings? You're right, he didn't pitch in the 4th anymore. Congrats. La Russa still used half a dozen guys to close games despite your claims that he'd never rely on guys other than his closer like Rocco does.

I think that's some of it, but when you're picking up Jonah Bride and Kody Clemens over giving McCusker a shot it's not all of it. Bride is 0 for his last 15 or something. You can replace him with any other random waiver pickup at any point in the season. They really struggle to develop position player talent. I know we like to act like they get decimated by injuries (and they did in 2022), but they really don't. They have injury prone stars, but in terms of quantity they're really just an average MLB team. When they had Lewis, Julien, and Wallner come up from AAA 2 years ago and mash they saw the most success they've had in 2 decades. When they've relied on waiver wire pickups and one year vets it's been far less successful. And I'm not predicting McCusker can do what those 3 did that year, but we know Bride and Clemens aren't going to. And Margot wasn't going to last year. And neither was Farmer. Or Luplow. Or Garlick. I do think they fear losing their "depth." But I think they also don't trust that they've developed enough people worth risking the depth for. They took a shot on Keaschall, but won't on McCusker. I don't think they think he's good enough. And they very well may be right. I don't think Bride and Clemens types are good enough not to try, though.

I am certainly not going to make a strong argument against their lack of trust. On another note: Carson McCusker just hit another HR for the Saints. An absolute bomb. 114.7 MPH off the bat. 426 ft.

Because if the Twins can claim someone on waivers or sign a one year vet who's best hope is being a league average player they're always going to take that option over relying on their system. We've known this for years. They don't trust their ability to develop players and would rather take their chances with journeymen.

Yeah, it's what I see, too. I agree, it should be enlarged.

The reference to the Bomba Squad appears to just be used as word play to say they're getting blown up in the zone. He never says he's talking about those specific players. The graphics are showing 3 years worth of data so every team is listed 3 times. The red lines are the Twins score each year. The artifacts are the year markers. The sizing does make them a little hard to read, though.

Yes, I did focus on one because you are the one advocating for the manager to go by the book, not me, and La Russa was known for being the opposite of what you're advocating for and not going by the book. He changed the game and how it was managed and that's been my point. I focused on the one because when I provided 6 seasons of stats your response was "yawn." You want more? In 1988 he pitched in the 8th inning 22 times. '89 was 17 times. '90 was 21. '91 was 22. It's why he was unavailable so often and La Russa had to use 4-6 guys to get about 20 saves a year for all those seasons. I'm sorry I'm not going to spend more time doing his entire career, but I've given you the number of times he appeared in games before the 9th in his first 5 seasons in Oakland and given you La Russa's closers numbers for his first 6 seasons in Oakland. You're still going to deny that he used his bullpen differently than every other manager and changed the game even though it's what he's known for and why they came up with the term "La Russaization" so I'm going to stop wasting my time on someone who doesn't care about the actual facts of how things happened. I don't have a book I want Rocco, or any manager, to go by. That's you. In fact, my first post in this thread said I'd prefer he uses Sands in the 7th, Jax in the 8th, and Duran in the 9th but that I don't think it's outrageous to go by matchups instead of innings. My "book" is to be adaptable to the roster you have available to you. You and most of the "old school" advocates are the ones with the hard and fast "book" of rules on how things should be done. Not me.

I'll play a little of the middle ground here. I think the offense is a little better than this, but it wasn't/isn't good enough to have bet on it the way they did this offseason. Lewis injury shouldn't be a surprise so can't blame that, but Wallner has never had injury problems and him being out is hurting. A healthy Correa should reasonably be expected to be better than this. Julien, Larnach, Miranda, Jeffers, etc. are all inconsistent hitters so them being inconsistent hitters shouldn't be a surprise, and the FO shouldn't have bet on them being anything but inconsistent hitters. Many of us spent the whole offseason saying the offense wasn't good enough and it's why we thought they were a low- to mid-80s win team at best. When Correa is bad when he's on the field you're going to see them struggle pretty good. Correa needs to get it going or this team has no shot. And they need to stay afloat until Wallner gets back then hope they can stay reasonably healthy from there on out. All for their chance at getting to around .500. Betting on this lineup was a mistake. And it may cost Falvey his job if the Pohlads actually sell the team.

I don't know where the idea that he's essentially Julien out there came from, but he's already an ok defender. I'm not predicting gold gloves or anything, but I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised with him. He'll be an average defender there. And average MLB defenders are really good fielders.

Luke Keaschall is more athletic than Royce Lewis right now. And he's not a bad fielder. He can play 2nd base.

If Festa, Zebby, etc. are 2s and 3s in a rotation it's absolutely meaningful. If they're at the point where they can start consistently turning out multiple legitimate mid- to upper-rotation arms that is not something to just brush off. If they're all just 4s and 5s like TR and company were kicking out then it's not so meaningful. It's up to everyone individually to decide what they think the future holds for those arms. I've already said it took too long to get the system to where it is now, but this part of the discussion is forward looking. If they have it figured out it's meaningful to risk screwing up a development system that could produce regular legit MLB arms. And, yes, it did stop them from getting canned for a very long time. TR was in charge for 18 years (over 2 stints). Gardy managed for 13 seasons. Neither had any real playoff success. They won 6 playoff games in those years. Let's not act like the Pohlad boys club loyalty is some new thing that Falvey and Rocco are getting treated to after Gardy and TR were given quick hooks. That's not how things played out at all. TR and Gardy were good at their jobs for a long time and I'm not here to say otherwise, but they were also given very long leashes while very clearly showing no real chance of being capable of bringing a title to Minnesota. Was Ryan more successful at pitching development? What pitching pipeline did Terry Ryan develop? He was in charge from 1994 to 2007 and then 2011 to 2016. That's 18 years by my count. Johan was a Rule 5 pick so we can give him partial credit there like Joe Ryan (but obviously Johan was WAY better) as they finished his development. Liriano (trade) and Berrios were wins for sure. Radke was drafted and developed under McPhail, not TR. Eric Milton 4.76 ERA with the Twins, Joe Mays 4.85, Kyle Lohse 4.88, Scott Baker 4.15, Kevin Slowey 4.66, Perkins had to move to the pen, Nick Blackburn 4.85, Brian Duensing 4.13, Liam Hendriks 6.06, Scott Diamond 4.43, Cole De Vries 5.08, Kyle Gibson 4.52, Adalberto Mejia 4.63, Fernando Romero 5.17. TR was in charge for 18 years and had 3 clear wins. Falvey has been in charge for 8 and has 2. I'm not seeing the "much more successful" TR pipeline. Just more names because he was here for longer. Of course being a GM (or POBO) is about more than being successful at one side of the game. You're responding to a comment where I literally say "I'm also the guy who's been openly critical about their failure to produce defensively capable position players. I'm also the guy who's been openly critical about their failure to produce offensively capable position players." And I'll now say for the 4th time in this thread that I'd fire Falvey because of it. But if you think he's "picking and choosing one aspect" you're not paying attention. Go look at his drafts. He's not taking pitchers in the first round. He just isn't good at getting the right people and systems in place to produce successful offenses and defenses in the majors. And (for the 5th time now) I'd fire him for it. But, yes, him being able to develop pitching is still a factor in the decision. Because there's a chance things get worse. I'd fire him because I want a championship. I don't think Falvey has what it takes to bring the Twins there. So, I'd fire him. But I do it with my eyes open to the fact that there's a chance that things can be worse. And I would hire somebody else who also believes in analytics because we're in the 21st century and data is king. I think "total system failure" is a significant exaggeration for the situation. I don't think this team is going to lose 100 games. I don't think this team is going lose 90 games. I think they have a top 10 pitching staff and that will keep them competitive and around .500 again. But I don't want competitive and around .500 and that's why I'd remove Falvey. I wouldn't say he's "epically failed" at his mission. I just don't think he can win a championship and that's what I want.

That's what I get for going off my memory! Thanks for the info.

Oh, his defense is obviously the only reason he'd ever be on the field, I'm just saying, to this point, they haven't started using Jeffers more frequently as it was reported they were going to. And they certainly may change things when Lewis gets here and DHs more, I don't know. I was just noting that they haven't leaned more heavily on Jeffers to this point.

The game before Jax was used in the 7th because that was when the heart of Boston's order was up while Stewart was crashing and burning and he came in and got Bregman and Abreu out to save the Twins from another ugly loss. His appearance before that (May 1st) Jax threw in the 8th inning of a 2-2 game against Cleveland's 2-3-4 hitters and struck out 2 of them (Jose Ramirez and Kyle Manzardo) in a 1-2-3 inning. Yesterday wasn't his first time back in a high leverage spot. Let's not overreact to 1 pitch. I know those back to back blowup games freaked people out, but Jax has still been mostly lights out this year.

I'm the guy who has been openly critical about it taking too long to develop the "pitching development pipeline." (In fact, just yesterday I made that very statement) It's not an "emotional reaction" to suggest the Twins have helped Joe Ryan reach another level after he arrived here nor is it an "emotional reaction" to suggest that Festa, Zebby, Lewis, Prielipp, Raya, Soto, Morris, Culpepper, Hill, et al represent a high-quality pitching prospect group that just about any other organization would love to have. I don't think I've ever used the phrase "amazing pitching development pipeline" in my life, though. I'm also the guy who's been openly critical about the macro-analytical approach to platooning this team had for years that I felt held them back significantly. I'm also the guy who's been openly critical about their failure to produce defensively capable position players. I'm also the guy who's been openly critical about their failure to produce offensively capable position players. I'm also the guy who has repeatedly stated (including multiple times in this very thread in responses to you) that he'd fire Derek Falvey. But you don't want to acknowledge that because that'd get in the way of your emotional reaction to my facts. But other than all of that, sure, you really got me on this one! How dare I have the audacity to only question some of what they do and not say 100% of it is terrible and awful! I only want to fire them but am also crazy enough to still be objective and not just rage about everything. What an outrageous way for me to go through life.

I see the general similarity of pitching development that I think we should be encouraged Falvey has finally gotten the Twins to, but he went a pretty different direction on the position player side for a long time. They appear to be moving more towards the Cleveland side with a more athletic, contact based type now (Keaschall, DeBarge, Culpepper, Jenkins, Lee-although he's not athletic), but the difference in athleticism and defensive capabilities between these two teams has been staggering for years. The Twins have more spending power than the Guardians do and they shouldn't follow their exact game plan. Building through pitching development is an absolutely great strategy as pitching is a great asset on the trade market if you can continually develop it. But the Twins being able to pay for more power than the Guardians should give them an advantage and allow them to do things differently. They just haven't been good at identifying or developing talent that performs for their extra money. Generally speaking, though, every team is trying to develop as much talent on both the position player and pitching side as they can. The Twins seem to be figuring it out on the pitching side but still failing on the position player side (some of which is injury related). That makes them similar to the Guardians in that they have been good at preventing runs while struggling to score runs. But every team is trying to develop talent on both sides of the ball at all times. Neither of these teams are trying to develop pitching better than they develop hitting. They just happen to be better at the pitching side. And it's holding them both back.

It's pretty hard to judge what their plans are this year because of the roster makeup due to injuries recently. They seem to have moved somewhat away from needing to play everyone a decent amount as Keirsey was getting essentially no run when the roster was even remotely healthy (outside of defense and pinch running). If they're willing to go with pretty close to a set 10 guy lineup (despite reports that they were going to lean more heavily on Jeffers behind the plate they really haven't done that so it's still a 10-man lineup when you include the 2 catchers), then I could see Julien going down when Lewis and/or Castro are back as they wouldn't likely want him sitting on the bench while they'd be more open to Gasper, Bride, and Clemens sitting around. I'd guess they don't care a ton if they lose Clemens, but I think they actually like Bride so I'd be pretty surprised if they DFA'd him. But we know they love their "depth" so Julien having options makes it easier to send him down as they do have a tendency to freak out over injuries and if they're in that kind of mood and like Clemens at all they'll keep him around in the name of "depth" even if he's easily replaceable at any point in time. With all that being said, I don't think it'd be surprising at all to see Julien sent down. He may actually be fighting with Gasper as the most likely candidates. It'd actually surprise me more to see Castro back Tuesday without a single rehab game than it would to see Julien sent down. My guess would be Castro gets a few rehab games before he's back, but Lewis is back Tuesday and Gasper goes down while Julien lives to botch grounders another day. But he faces the chopping block again when Castro is back depending on the health of the rest of the squad (never a safe bet) so he better start out performing rocket jr by then.

Correa's deal is the only outlier that Cleveland wouldn't sign. Jose Ramirez isn't exactly playing for league minimum.