jorgenswest

Twins giving May little help in keeping his job. Can they construct a worse lineup up the middle defensively and be as poor with the bat? Looks like they are trying to make the Santana decision an easy one.

Nunez is a historically bad defensive shortstop. You can see it with your eyes. You can see it in the metrics. He must also be a very poor defensive left fielder. Last night he could have been in LF with Santana at SS and Rosario in CF. Nunez had to be the reason they didn't go that way. In two of his 5 recent starts at SS the results have cost the team. The Pelfrey start in Chicago he missed key balls to his left and right that a typical SS would have made. No errors. They just extended the inning and in one case allowed two runs to score. He also fumbled a double play ball that caused a run to score and extended the inning. The extra batters increased Pelfrey's pitch count and created the at bats by LaRoche and Cabrera late in the game that never needed to occur. We saw last night his disastrous play in the seventh. Tere Twins were fortunate to win. The Twins can't afford to have a SS giving away two of every five starts. Teams can't win consistently that way. Teams can win with a solid defensive SS and good bats from their DH and 1B slots. Fix the offense. Get more production from those spots.

Pelfrey and May have a start before any decision is made. They need to perform. Make the decision difficult. If Pelfrey puts up another bad start, it shouldn't matter how he takes the demotion. It is in his hands. If he puts up a great outing against KC there is no way Molitor puts him in the pen.

This is how he needed to perform to earn a spot. Next he needs to lead this team to victory on Sunday against the Royals.

Santana with a solid 2 innings. The Twins really need him to show he is ready. Keep it going and earn that spot.

Fien is an extreme fly ball pitcher. He is going to give up home runs. The Twins know that going in.

Teams are going to lose trading a regular in their prime for a top 10 starting pitching prospect more often then they will win. It is so hard to find top of the rotation pitchers that it is worth the risk. The Twins will probably lost this trade but given the same circumstances I would do it again without hesitation.

It should still be on Santana to impress tomorrow. Pelfrey and May both also get one more start.Twins are wise to play it out. Any of the three would help the bullpen.

My apologies for the vitriol. I am still not convinced OPS is a better measure than strike out rates, walk rates and with a large enough sample home run rates.

It is really hard to hit major league pitching. There is often discussion about a player being ready. That isn't possible. You can't learn to hit major league pitchers in the minors. You can dominate your level. You can show a low chase rate. You can show improved judgement of the strike zone. A player can show they are ready for the next challenge. There are countless careers where players struggled in their first 1000 plate appearance before showing readiness. The Twins invested that time into Dozier and Plouffe. Hunter's defense allowed them to be patient with his offense. It took Morneau quite a while. That is the norm. Expect Sano to struggle. They can't wait until he is ready. It won't happen. The jump from AA or AAA is too great.

Since 2012, 75 starting pitchers have pitched at least 500 innings.The Twins have four of those pitchers. The top performer is Kershaw with an ERA+ of 164. Milone 47th 99 ERA+ Hughes 51st 97 Santana 57th 97 Nolasco 68th 87 A pitcher's job is to prevent runs. Over a large sample the size often used for projections, Milone has prevented fewer runs than Santana, Hughes and Nolasco. Milone is also younger than the other three. How is that the performance of a borderline number 5 pitcher? It doesn't really matter if it is borderline number 5 performance. The others would need to be described similarly.

It would be nice if 5 minutes of prep work were put into one of the main topics. Milone to the bullpen. Did you know that Milone has been more effective against right handed batters than left handed batters over his career? His strike out rate against right handed batters is better. His walk rate against right handed batters is better. He has been better against lefties this year in as a sample of only 70 plate appearance. that is a small sample in comparison to career where he has reverse splits in the minors and majors. Listening to your show, we would have to believe that he has consistently year in year out been better against lefties and it isn't true. Did you know he is better in innings 4-6 than innings 1-3. A lot better this year. Does that sound like a reliever to you? A few minutes of prep would be nice.

Should the Twins give Sano time in RF this season? There is no one under contract that is a lock for RF. It might be the best spot. The Twins have had too many other guys that they put in the OF with little recent play there in the minors. They can avoid that be giving Sano some experience in RF now. They can do that by moving him to AAA or playing Harrison at 3B and giving him experience in AA. It doesn't need to be every game, but it would be valuable if he had 30 games in RF this year.

Lucroy probably not available http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/whos-available-and-whos-not-from-the-brewers-b99526821z1-310376871.html

Milone has performed better (by ERA+) since his first full season than any of the other 6. He is the only lefty. He is 28 and under team control until 2019. Put him in the pen? He is probably the worst fit of the 7. He pitches better innings 4-6 than 1-3. In the first three innings he has an ERA of 4.33 with 16-12 K/BB. Innings 4-6 he has an ERA of 1.56 and 16/6. Is it possible that as the game progresses he gradually gets the unpire to give him a little more of the corner of the plate? He also has career platoon splits that are neutral and much more ideal for a starting role. Pelfrey or Gibson? They with Milone have ERAs in the low 3s. How can any of the three be removed from their spot? What kind of message does that send to the team? Work your tail off. Back it up with performance and it doesn't matter. Pelfrey specifically had to fight back from two injuries and do it without the use of PEDs. Now they are going to replace him with a guy that tried to do it the easy way? Great message to send the organization. That leaves Hughes and May. It isn't going to be Hughes. If contracts didn't matter, it would be Santana in the pen. May has one start before Santana returns. He needs to be lights out. If they want to do what is best for the team, they really need to expect Santana to earn it. He hasn't yet. In 12.2 innings he has allowed 17 base runners with 2 home runs. He has 6 strike outs and 4 walks. You might recall Tommy Milone's numbers in AAA. in 38.2 innings it was 28 base runners and 47 Ks. There is no way a guy can allow 17 base runners while striking out just 6 batters in AAA and then be successful in the majors. Santana has one more game to show he is ready. He needs to show it.

Add the offense to the goat list. If they put up 3 runs instead of 1 the need to pinch hit becomes a lot less. Baserunning was awful. Nothing from Dozier except K's. Molitor using a challenge that wasn't clear and then didn't have one when it was clear. Lots of goats. Escobar and Santana get a walk in the same inning. If that ever happens again the Twins have to figure out how to take advantage.

Escobar has a .656 OPS. Not good for LF but the split for all SS in the AL is a . 646 OPS. Maybe they can get league average SS play from a guy already on the team. If they could approach league average production from 1B and DH it would be a big step towards staying in contention.

Sometimes it seems like not believing in defensive metrics leads to not believing defense matters. The measurement of defense is imperfect. Some believe that since we know it is imperfect, we shouldn't consider it. Defense matters. Measuring it is essential. Those measures will evolve just as measures of offense have evolved beyond batting average.

This was not Suzuki's reputation coming to Minnesota unless his tactics were to call a very high rate of fastballs. Working with Allen will be a plus.

I haven't seen Rosario play CF, but it is hard to imagine that Santana would be better. We have even the results of good defense on the pitching. We saw how Nunez lack of range and misplay at SS extended Pelfrey's start and cost the team on Tuesday. We saw how Schafer's inability to take a good path to the ball hurt earlier in the year. The Twins need pitching, defense and production from the top 4 in the lineup. Those 4 need to step up and the others need to keep runs off the board.

Rendon is on DL for second time. Washington will need Desmond.

With Hicks and Buxton out this is the opportunity for an OF to step in. Kepler appears to be the most ready by showing solid understanding of the strike zone in AA. The Future's Game should not be a consideration. If he comes up, it is to start in LF with Rosario in CF.

It must be tempting to bring up Max Kepler. I am not sure about Rosario's defense in CF or Kepler's in LF but definitely intrigued. Is Thompson's contribution in the bullpen more valuable than an OF bat?

They need to go with Robinson in CF and Santana at SS. The slight increase in offense by playing Nunez over Robinson does not nearly match the deficit in defense in CF and SS. It is time for the veterans to step up and win the series in Milwaukee. We need Mauer, Plouffe, Dozier and Hunter to have a big series. Then they need to continue it into Cincinnati and Kansas City. Star players carry teams into contention. Santana and Robinson just need to be solid.

Why doesn't that return need to be better than what they are getting from their current 5? I want him to earn it. If he doesn't, start him in the pen. There will be an opportunity for the rotation as the season progresses. Let him earn it then.