KirbyDome89

I think it's easier to find multi inning pen arms than starters who can consistently go 6-7 innings. The Twins had the worst bullpen in baseball entering the trade deadline. Golf clap for getting a couple arms but to me that's isn't decent strategy. I'm not near as bullish on Alcala or Lopez either. They've set themselves up for failure with the turn and burn strategy without an actual top end of the pen.

It's almost certainly the former and the players might be too much of that big voice as well. Like any data point, medical info is all about how you're using it. I'd be shocked if any MD was comfortable/happy with their professional acumen being called into question just to squeeze a few extra weeks out of a clearly injured (insert player here.) I'd add bullpen construction to the list of adjustments the FO refuses to make. Their FA signings flopped and the castoffs performed like castoffs last year, but I guess second time was the charm right? Nope, for the second season in a row the pen is a major issue, and worst of all it's probably the easiest thing to fix.

I don't care how wiggle room placing "any," in front of culpability does or doesn't buy you, that's not really the point. The issue is we're papering over what has clearly been poor decision making with hyperbole and this woe is me list of injured players. The best part is nobody had to be Nostradamus to be anxious about the pitching coming into this season, but speaking of seeing into the future, aren't you using theoretical WAR to argue how much value the Twins lost to the IL? Interesting... There's a seismic shift; they're in 3rd place in the worst division in baseball, but not technically eliminated so I guess there's that. Gold star.

"I don't see much of a case for holding the manager or even the front office primarily accountable for what's gone down this season." Audibly laughed out loud at this. I mean yeah, can't be the fault of a FO who constructed a makeshift bullpen, placed immense importance on a "pipeline," that has failed spectacularly, signed two bargain bin starters prone to short outings that further exacerbated the already terrible pen situation, and traded for two more injured starters. Oh, and don't forget, we're still watching Emilio Pagan, the worst relief pitcher in baseball, trot out there and give up runs in crucial games while this team hangs on by a thread. Definitely not much of a case for holding that group accountable. Zero chance any of that has contributed to this being a sub .500 teams for the last 4 months right? The above poster is correct, this is high level cringe.... Lewis and Kirilloff: Losing Kirilloff sucks, no question. We're lacking a ton of context with Lewis. Coming into this year he hadn't played since 2019, and he wasn't exactly stellar in A ball that year. There were real questions about him. The Twins weren't banking on him, hence the Correa signing. It's a bummer he injured the ACL again, and he was hitting the s*** outta the ball before getting sent down, but when the season started this team didn't need or maybe expect Royce Lewis to come up and play the way he did. Mahle and Paddack: They traded for broken parts, not once, but twice within 4 months. That's not aww shucks bad luck. It just isn't. Buxton: He's never going to play a full season. We knew it before the year started. It's why the 4th OF topic was a hot debate. He basically made it to September before having to shut it down. We can quibble over how his playing time was handled, but you already said it, second most PAs of his career. We take that every time. Jeffers and Larnach: Jeffers was bottom tier offensively, even by catching standards and he was even worse than Sanchez at stopping the run game. Would I take him over Leon? Yeah, but that's a pretty low hurdle. He's ideally the short side of a catching split, i.e. a backup catcher. Larnach has been so streaky, Idk which version the Twins would've gotten, but yep, I'd definitely prefer watching him to Cave or Garlick. Winder and Ober: No clear red flags? Are we actually serious with this? Both ended last year on the IL, Winder with his shoulder issue that's now flared up 3 times in less than a year and Ober with a hip injury that I imagine is linked to the groin issue that's cost him most of this year. Ober also hasn't been able to stay healthy enough to handle even modest workloads 4 professional seasons now.... Alcala and Canterino: Canterino threw 23 innings in the low minors before missing the rest of the year. Zero chance he was supposed to be relied on. Alcala had a nice September last year, he was borderline unusable through July. We act like he was a solid set up guy, the reality is he was a question mark even if fully healthy. Coulombe, Stashak, Romero, Dobnak, and Maeda: Maeda was injured last August, they knew what his status was heading into the offseason. The rest are AAAA, waiver claim, minor league contract guys. Just stop with this nonsense.

An overlooked but all too relevant point to keep in mind. Fingers crossed I guess.

Nice to see Lopez continue to bleed baserunners. Consistency is the key. That extra year of control is just great #value...

#Value

Pagan came in and immediately surrendered a single, a double, and then a ground ball to score a run, but yeah, en fuego...

They were just embarrassed in NY, they've got maybe one SP that can start a playoff game, we've all witnessed the spectacularfailure that is this bullpen, the offense is nonexistent at times, and they're 7 games under .500 since June but yeah, definitely #builtforoctober... FWIW Seattle is a better team than NY right now; getting them in a postseason matchup isn't comforting.

@Vanimal46posted a pretty discouraging Ryan split the other night in the game thread. Rookie lumps are a thing, but he needs to figure out a least one reliable secondary pitch because he can't navigate even decent lineups only throwing his FB.

4D chess

SWR has been in the Twins system for over a year now. Joe Ryan threw 9 innings at AAA for them. It's not even close to the same thing. IIRC TB was fighting to stay atop their division, and they also had one of the best pitching staffs in the league. I doubt the Rays weren't aware he could get big league hitters out, more likely, a lack of need, a division race, and service time factored heavily into the decision.

Ryan isn't a product of the Twins development system. He was MLB ready when they acquired him.

On a personal level, yeah, making the big leagues is a massive success. From a team standpoint, that's not remotely the case. Think about how low we're setting the bar when Dobnak or Thielbar are some of the first names mentioned as success stories. The "pipeline," is a meme at this point. Every organization has a Festa or Nowlin; guys in low minors who maybe if things break right find themselves in a major league rotation. That can't be where the goalposts are shifting.

It's a high BABIP in comparison to his half season in Baltimore as a reliever, it's not a crazy departure from his time as a starter, and I think that's the concern. Is his half season in Baltimore indicative of who he is, or are we seeing a guy drifting back down to Earth? You're right, the number of runners allowed has been atrocious, and while we can take some solace in his zero percentage, that''ll start to reflect his poor WHIP given enough time.

But he's able to eat up innings, and when he inevitably starts to put the game out of reach the decision not to use better arms becomes an easy one. #Value

The benches clearing was on Lopez. Vaughn was obviously (rightly) pissed about a pitch that missed his face by 6 inches. He literally put his head down out of the box, started towards 1B, shaking his head, and was taking off his gear when Lopez started barking at him and escalated the situation. This wasn't about whether or not the HPB was on purpose, it was about where the pitch was.

Only 2 games back despite going 4-6 in their last 10. Cleveland has a tough 6 games this week. If the Twins hold serve against Boston and Chicago continues their tailspin MN could have a share of 1st place heading into that NY series. This division is hilarious.

I wasn't exactly optimistic, but they'd also done most of the damage against Houston's bullpen the previous 2 games so a 2 run deficit wasn't a death sentence. I get some of the usage criticism, but I also see a team that had lost 4 straight, desperate to stop the bleeding, and a game that was still in reach. I just can't ding him too much here. If the pen coughs up the game tonight sans Duran or he makes an appearance and struggles my stance my swing. I feel like a lot of the criticism plays both sides, hence my question, but hey, if you're willing to live and die by saving those bullets then ok, point taken. Idk how much stock I'd put into individual game win percentages, but more importantly IMO, you want to be using your best players. Ideally it's highest leverage, but at some point the poor performance starts to become a self inflicted if your best arms continue to sit on the shelf.

If Rocco went with Pagan & Megill early, and a 2 run deficit turned into 5 run deficit, would you be defending the move to save Duran and Lopez, or would you pissed that a game they had a fighting chance in was put out of reach? Honestly.

Overpaid and inflated in comparison to what? The Twins started this year with a payroll $10M less than last year, it's clear they're not committing significant money to pitching, and they've got a lineup that's almost exclusively young/cheap/on team friendly deals, so what exactly about the Correa signing isn't viable for them? Conversely Arraez, Polanco, and Miranda cost roughly $8M combined and have been worth 6+ WAR and counting. Half of the Twins top WAR producers aren't even arb eligible, 3 of the remaining 5 are on the aforementioned team friendly deals, Sanchez is gone after this year, which leaves only Correa if he inexplicably decides to stay. You see my point about why it's silly to paper a FA dollars to WAR ratio across an entire roster when we know things are more fluid than that right?

Correa was obtained on the FA market so the ratio is relevant. I get a chuckle out of these quick math arguments when we all know teams aren't filling out their active rosters with 26 guys earning market value.

To be clear I'm not writing either of them off completely here, and they're one part of what I see as a larger problem. I think you're downplaying Ober's injury history a little. 108 innings last year (the most he's ever thrown) seems like the exception to the rule, and that's not a viable SP workload even by today's modest standards. We tend to forget it, but he began, and finished last year on the IL too. He's 27, and this year will be his third time in four full professional seasons where he'll finish with 70 something or fewer IP. None of this touches on whether he'll stick from a talent standpoint either. Idk what to do with Winder. His MLB exposure is limited; I don't see much value in picking that apart, but the shoulder thing scares me. 3x in 1 year is a problem that doesn't seem like it's going away without intervention, and anytime we're talking a shoulder or an elbow....yeah.... Maybe these guys hit your ceilings. They'll certainly get every opportunity to fail; that's the corner this FO has painted themselves into.

Ryan isn't a developmental success. He threw a whopping 9 innings at AAA and was immediately called up post trade. Again, great trade, but he was MLB ready when the Twins got their hands on him. God forbid two pitchers are injured? C'mon...that's not even close to what I've said. Bringing up an inconsistent offense is whataboutism. It doesn't have any bearing on pitching development. If the expectation that the Twins would have at least developed one reliable backend guy by this point is unreasonable, then we've moved the goalposts too far.