chpettit19

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.

I mean, I guess it depends on the organization and how they treat their titles. Teams have a lot of titles these days. If you want to get hung up on the "top guy" and the title aspect of things, be my guest. The point was that Falvey isn't going to be unemployed long. He's going to get hired by somebody else pretty quick. I'd guess an assistant GM title. You can rank that however you want in an org. And have you seen how they talked about TR in Philly? Sure sounds like he was pretty high up over there, yes. "Terry’s involved in all the conversations we have now.” is a quote from Dave Dombrowski. That sounds like a "top guy" to me. But you can make your own decision on that.

Fangraphs and b-ref both still list him below the 5 year mark and I think they're pretty good at keeping that stuff updated, but I don't know. I agree that if he'd have to go through waivers they wouldn't likely do that, but each time he goes through one of these "needs a reset" spells he gets closer and closer to that being a possibility.

19 saves by 5 other players? Eck wasn't available a lot. Another guy with 12 saves and 3 other guys combining for 12 more the next season. In 1987 Eck appeared in the 4th inning 10 times, 5th inning twice, 6th inning 7 times, 7th inning 7 times, 8th inning 12 times. I'm sorry your assumption was wrong, but it was wrong.

Making final and definitive statements on guys based on their first 9 rookie year starts is a pretty risky move. Especially a gut who started that season in A+ ball. Corey Kluber was brought up on another article. ERA over 5 in 12 starts his first year as an MLB starter at the age of 26. His 2 Cy Youngs say he turned out alright. Berrios was younger than Zebby, but he had an 8.02 ERA in 14 starts his rookie year. I can keep going, but I think you get the point. Giving up on a guy because of his first 9 starts isn't a great move.

He's not at 5 years of service yet and has options left so they should be able to option him, right? I could certainly be wrong.

I'd like to see Festa or Zebby replace Alcala for a stretch and pair with Paddack as a piggy back. It's hard to run a piggy back as a long-term/season long core plan because it means you need to essentially have 6 MLB quality starters at all time, but to run it for a while here while Alcala goes down and gets himself straightened out I think would be alright since we have Festa and Zebby at AAA ready to go. It should essentially give the pen a day off once through the rotation and give one of those guys more experience at the major league level. I'd prefer to pair them with Paddack because I don't care about Paddack's future. And he's likely to break at some point anyways. So, I'd put Festa or Zebby into the rotation to go 5 or 6 (most likely 5) innings each time out and have Paddack be the guy to come in from the pen to do the 3 or 4 innings to close things out since I don't care about him continuing to build his stamina and work on getting through 5 or 6+ innings each time. But with Alcala struggling right now, I think it presents them an opportunity to try this kind of thing out. Get one of the AAA arms up here and let Paddack be a bulk innings eater out of the pen. Zebby and Festa both wasting bullets in AAA feels unnecessary to me.

Like Farhan Zaidi because well respected FO execs of even failed teams still get jobs? Sure, that's a good enough example.

WAR? I never even mentioned WAR other than it being in that screenshot. And who cares about his WAR there. His ERA was 4.42 while both Ryan and Ober are under 4.00. ERA+ under 100 compared to Ryan and Ober over 100. And Bauer had the lowest K% with nearly double the BB%. Sure, throw WAR out the window. Ober-Bauer-Ryan was the order there. Bauer was the middle one, and by far the worst performer. Suggesting Bauer was some sort of success story with Cleveland in his first 5 seasons there while Ober and Ryan aren't success stories here is an absolutely wild take. And the point of the Top 100 prospect comment wasn't at all to say Kluber wasn't great in the majors, it was to combat that Festa, Zebby, Lewis, and all the rest of the guys in the minors have little to no chance of being successes because they aren't highly rated prospects. I'm not banking on any of them being stars (as I said), but you've declared them as having essentially no chance while claiming Tanner Bibee as some sort of decent future Cy Young candidate. You had a nice rant. It made you feel better. But it was seriously lacking in context. You've written Zebby off as some back end starter with no chance of being great. Here's Kluber's 2nd year (technically, but his first year was 4.1 bullpen innings) vs Zebby's first year. Kluber was 26 years old. Zebby 24. This is the point of the Top 100 prospect comment. Kluber was a 25-30 ranked system prospect who wasn't good until he was 27 years old. That's the point. You're writing off all these 22-24 year olds and I'm saying you're making that declaration way too soon. Kluber won 2 Cy Youngs after this age 26 season. I think you can give Zebby maybe a few more starts before you declare him finished.

Not by me because I still don't really have a good guess at what's going on with him and what his professional goals were then or are now. And a bunch of people claimed Popkins wasn't qualified to be an MLB hitting coach and would never get hired by another MLB team yet he was unemployed for a whopping 20 days before Toronto hired him.

Yes, facts and actual information are often found to be boring compared to emotional reactions and just going with how something feels. Its the driving factor behind headlines and how many things are done online. Doesn't change the actual facts, though. Enjoy your day.

As I said in a comment later in the thread, it may not be another POBO job. The Twins are constantly voted one of the 8-15 best front offices in baseball in surveys of executives year after year. Falvey is well respected amongst his peers. He's not going to be unemployed long. He'll be one of the top guys in another front office real quick.

Well I think calling Ober a 4 is ridiculous so your entire rant loses a lot of it's credibility right there. And a lot of it is a matter of opinion and guess work on the future of what Festa, Zebby, and the rest become. It took longer than it should have (in my opinion) to establish, but the results haven't all been tallied to make the declarations you're trying to make. Bauer was mostly ok with Cleveland and didn't win a Cy Young until he openly started using "sticky stuff." He had a 4.32 combined ERA there his first 5 seasons. And they didn't get him as a minor leaguer, he'd already debuted for the Diamondbacks before he even got to Cleveland. But you left all of those details out of your rant because just putting "Cy Young" next to his name despite that it happened after he left Cleveland looks a whole lot better. Ryan and Ober haven't even gotten to the point of their career where Bauer got good yet. Tanner Bibee gets a "future Cy Young?" next to his name? Why? Because he had a nice rookie year? He wasn't anything super special last year. If Ober is a #4 then so is Bibee because they're essentially the same guy. He's not super young or anything. Kluber was never a top 100 prospect. So your assumption that none of the Twins current minor leaguers are going to do what he did doesn't carry any weight. He was a guy that came out of nowhere as a 4th round pick who debuted at the age of 25 and then had great success starting at the age of 27. Your rant is missing a whole lot of context so I'm glad it was cathartic because it wasn't all that accurate or meaningful when you actually dig into the details of the pitchers you named. Bauer, Ryan, and Ober listed in some order below. Their 2nd through 4th seasons since this is the start of Ryan and Ober's 5th season. See if you can pick out Bauer that was so much more dominant and "not comparable."

Agreed. And it's why I'd fire him. Appears to me (from the outside, and with admittedly limited knowledge) that he's better suited for a job a little lower down the ladder.

I literally said they wouldn't be stars but major leaguers. Hope that was cathartic, though.

Falvey is the head of everything now to save the Pohlads money. So he isn't going anywhere until a sale decision is made. If they decide to keep the team then it becomes a question of how long it takes them to decide he's costing them more than he's saving them. But he's the domino that matters (cuz we can't fire the Pohlads, unfortunately). I like what he's done with the pitching development system as he seems to have gotten the system he helped with in Cleveland in place here. Not sure it's going to crank out a bunch of stars, but it looks like it can develop major leaguers and thats vital. And I like that they've started to go after more athletes on the position player side, but there's something broken in the machine that they don't seem to be able to solve. He's had enough time and it's time to move on, but it won't happen with the sale on the table. Falvey is going to get another job almost immediately after he's fired. The Twins FO was voted in the top half of the league again this offseason by their peers in the survey on The Athletic. And after helping both Cleveland and now Minnesota develop pitching development programs he's going to have no problem getting hired. And we need to be prepared for the possibility things get even worse around here. But he hasn't shown he knows how to get this thing to a truly competitive place and you have to take the chance on finding someone who can. Hopefully there's some other folks in the org that have learned the pitching dev side of things that they can retain to keep that going and the new people can add the player dev side and get things really cooking.

1986 was La Russa's first season with the A's. No Eckersley. He had 9 guys record saves. 2 in double figures with saves. Not exactly ALWAYS having one guy in the 9th, huh? Sort of sounds like a closer by committee situation. But that can't be. Nobody would be that stupid. Especially not an "old school" guy like La Russa. '87 had Eckersley show up and record 16 saves. Same exact number of saves as Jay Howell. 7 total pitchers recorded saves that year for them. Dang, another closer by committee sounding season. But that's impossible because you put ALWAYS in all caps so it has to be true that La Russa would never even consider that idea even though you've already been proven wrong in just his first 2 seasons in Oakland. '88 saw Eck truly take over the closer role and record 45 saves. 5 other players recorded saves, though. 4 of them recorded at least 3. 19 total saves to other players. More unbalanced, but certainly not an ALWAYS situation. '89 Eck with 33, Honeycutt 12, 12 others between 3 more pitchers. Really not an ALWAYS situation. '90 Eck 48, 16 to other 4 other pitchers. Still not an ALWAYS situation. '91 you're actually right on this one as Eck recorded 43 saves and only 2 other pitchers had saves. 6 total. So you're at 1 out of 6 seasons so far, congrats. It's almost like you're completely and utterly wrong on your general premise, though. Good chat.

You completely missed the point. The point was that he didn't just do what the previous generations did like you were preaching. He actively rejected your stance of just doing what the managers before him did. And if you think LaRussa is just known for Eckersley, you've only read 1 chapter of the metaphorical book and there's no point in furthering this discussion.

"He controlled himself?" What does that even mean? People want Rocco to use his eyes and make decisions based on what he's watching. Well watching the ball rocket off bats all night should tell him his pitcher is in trouble. Your argument is to go with the stat line instead and ignore his eyes. Just use what the stats say. Just go by pitch count and inning and ignore the fact that over half the hitters he's faced have pissed on the ball. Is that what you want? You want Rocco to just use the numbers? No eye test? Not watch what's happening and just use pitch count and inning? Because anyone truly watching that game was seeing Paddack give up all kinds of hard contact. You didn't need Statcast numbers to provide that. But, hey, it was just 76 pitches and 5 innings so let him go, right? That's what you want? You going to stand up and say your belief is Rocco should ignore what he's watching and just use the numbers?

Weird that you cut out the part where I pointed out what they did differently. And weird that you can't point out any in game strategy (because we were talking about the strategies Rocco uses) that any team does that's different than any other team. And where I explain that the differences between teams is how they balance each strategy and combine them all into their own formula because each team has their own analytics that they use to personalize their use of each strategy. We're talking in game strategy. You seem to now be trying to move the goal posts to other areas. But there's only so many in game strategies to use. The way you're unique is the way you personalize your usage of those strategies. So, again, the Twins DID do something drastically different (about as close as you can get to not just copying what others do) the last couple years when it came to their use of platoons. They were the very clear outliers in their use of the platoon last year. What "strategy?" That's where nuance comes in. It isn't just one strategy. You don't think their pitching development strategies (again, more than one strategy at play there) are good? I don't think their platoon strategies were good. And I've been one of the most vocal critics of it for years. To the point where people call me out on boards for being a broken record, or send me private messages asking me to just shut up about platooning. I don't like that strategy. I didn't like their strategy of drafting slow sluggers early in drafts. They've changed that strategy and gone more athletic lately. What's mind blowing to me is the statement that there's one singular strategy or process to judge. There aren't a lot of people on these boards saying the results are good or that the Twins have it all figured out. I'm certainly not saying that and never have. I've been very critical of their position players and their roster construction strategies when it comes to the position player side of things. But I do think they have some very good strategies when it comes to the pitching side. See, nuance is important. I've said many times, including in this very thread, that I'd fire Falvey if I were in charge. And that's the key move. You have to start at the top. But this simplified idea of looking "at this organization and saying this is good. the process is good. the strategy is good." is the problem. All you're doing is putting things into the "good or bad, black or white" buckets again and ignoring that there is no 1 individual strategy to judge the entire organization on.