Tom Froemming

My favorite play of the series was yesterday when Polanco ranged to his right, made a nice pick, avoided Sano and fired to end the seventh inning. Here's a link to that highlight. This is true, but I like the fact that Molitor is going to keep putting him in the three spot, at least for the time being. If you think Buxton is your third hitter on Opening Day, why let 15 plate appearances change your mind? If Byron has the peace of mind that even if he has a bad series, or a bad few weeks, he's still going to be in there everyday I think we're going to see some very good things happen for him this season.

Great stuff. I think before long we'll see some sort of head protection become universal for pitchers. Somebody needs to come up with something low-profile and comfortable to wear. We've seen some advancements in the design of batting helmets (though nobody seems to be able to make one that'll stay on Eduardo Nunez's head), but I haven't heard much about studies on catcher's masks or helmets. Seems to me like those goalie-style one-piece ones would be safer, but tons of guys still use the old school two piece ones. Of course, you're never going to be able to protect everybody from everything. There will always be potential for some freak play where a middle infielder's knee nails a guy right in the wrong spot on the head. And none of the protection options I mentioned above would prevent anybody from getting hit in the neck, like Phillip Hughes did. Certainly the more and more velo we're seeing on the mound and the exit velocities we now have access to off the bat make you think of things like this. I'm glad the base coaches wear helmets now, and there's more netting to protect the fans, but it'd be great to see the MLB continue to keep a focus on safety.

Our Mr. Grossman, whatever you wanna call him, is 6-for-11 with a pair of doubles and a homer off Danny Duffy over his career. So no matter if Park, Vargas or whoever was on the roster, he'd probably be DHing today anyway.

Hard to project his future due to his lack of size, but Eduardo Del Rosario is a super fun pitcher to watch right now. Really came along as the year progressed. Over his last nine games had a 2.31 ERA, held opponents to a .195/.275/.314 line and had 60 Ks against 15 BBs. His swinging strike % over that stretch was about 15%, which is elite.

Man, that's a great looking Triple A roster. Is Paulsen strictly a 1B now, or could you see him playing some in the outfield corners? Have any thoughts on Goodrum's defense at shortstop to share?

Definitely more work and attention has been put on the change than the curve, but the overall vibe is he is working on mixing things up more. Yes, the changeup has not been a pitch Hughes has been comfortable breaking out with any kind of regularity in the past, so he's been throwing it like crazy this spring. He told Patrick Reusse "I’m in. I’m going to throw the changeup this year.” So I think, for better or worse, we're going to see Hughes continue to work on getting the feel for that pitch.

I believe anyone on the 40-man roster with more than five years of service time can refuse an outright assignment to the minors. My guess would be in this scenario Hughes would just elect to become a free agent. The Twins would still have to pay him every penny owed on his contract. I think if you're looking for ways to ditch Hughes, the most likely outcome would be something similar to the Ricky Nolasco trade. The Twins would have to package Hughes with a prospect and chip in some money.

I guess you could say I'm high on Phil Hughes

I get what you're saying, but it seems like most of the time closers don't throw in as many close games as top setup men. The following rant has more to do with closing in general than Kintzler/the Twins. Consider these usage numbers from the Orioles bullpen in close games last year. Percentage of games entered with the score either tied or within one run 46.5% Brad Brach (33/71) 43.9% Mychal Givens (29/66) 34.8% Zach Britton (24/69) And just for fun, a couple other data points on the best setup man and the guy who led the league in saves ... 50.7% Dellin Betances (37/73) 35.9% Jeurys Familia (28/78) Looks like 11 of Britton's 47 saves and 14 of Familia's 51 came when they entered with a three-run lead. No offense to relievers, but Eduardo Escobar should be able to get three outs before he gives up three runs more often than not. Britton had maybe the greatest season a relief pitcher has ever put together, but since he had the limitations of the closer role put on him, there were multiple other relievers even on his own team who threw more high-pressure innings. I know calling the closer role stupid at this point isn't very controversial, but I also don't think it's going anywhere. So my argument is I want the closer on my team to be the second or maybe even third best guy in the bullpen, freeing up my studs to come in for the most high-stress situations, no matter the inning. So the reason why I like Kintzler as closer on the Twins right now isn't because I think he's their best reliever. Actually, it's the complete opposite.

I actually kinda like Kintzler as closer. Out of 135 qualified relievers, he ranked 4th in BB% and 9th in GB% last season. A good amount of the time, you're just asking him to get three outs before he gives up three runs anyway. Looks like he entered the game with a three-run lead in eight of the 17 games he got saves in last year. My bigger concern is getting to the save situations in the first place. Who's the shutdown guy you can turn to to get a key strikeout with runners on in the 6th/7th/8th innings to keep the game in reach? Pressly, I guess? Will be interesting to see how things shake out.

I think bullpen usage will be the No. 1 thing to watch across the league this season. I'm hoping we see the return of the 100-inning reliever. The Reds have already been talking about using Iglesias and/or Lorenzen in that type of role. The Padres could lean on Brad Hand more this year and have him top 100. Even in a strict relief role, I'm hoping Jay exceeds his innings from last season (83 2/3), though I doubt that happens.

Biggest challenge I see here is having to add Park, Gimenez and Wimmers all to the 40-man roster. How do you see that playing out? Perkins to the 60-day DL, either O'Rourke or Boshers DFA'd and Tonkin DFA'd?

You're right, that has been an issue for Sano. But I'd imagine if that continues to be a problem we'll see him switch back to DH duties. The Big A is known as a pitcher's heaven, but it's worth noting Hector's ERA there (3.89) is slightly worse than his career mark (3.84). He's pitched very well there, but the difference isn't as huge as I would have guessed. I agree, home runs are probably always going to be a problem for Santiago. This is kinda the conclusion I've come to. I get it, he's new so we don't really have any emotional connection to him compared to a guy like Gibson. He also didn't win anybody over in that first month with the team, so he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt like Hughes. Good one I agree he could go either direction, but I disagree about his dependence on defense. A lot of the balls put in play against Santiago are actually easy outs. That's why BABIP is much lower on fly balls than grounders. With an outfield defense of Rosario, Buxton and Kepler, I'm hoping the majority of those fly balls turn into outs. A good number of them will go over the fence, but that's got nothing to do with defense. He kinda is what he is at this point. One would think it would benefit him to walk fewer batters, but if he pitches in the zone more it's likely he'll just get clobbered. I think Hector realizes he doesn't have the greatest stuff, and he can't just go out and challenge hitters, so he nibbles around. Works great when his command is on point, but if he's missing his spots it can get real ugly real fast.

Hector Santiago is a fascinating pitcher in that he defies all the advanced metrics. Taking into account all the best ERA predictors, it makes no sense that from 2012-15 he managed a 3.84 ERA, which is identical to Jon Lester's mark over that same span. A big part of what made the difference for Santiago was that he was as tough as nails when pitching with runners in scoring position. His performance with runners on slipped last season, along with the majority of his other stats. The sabermetric community appears to have taken the stance that Hector's luck finally ran out, but is it that simple? Does he not get any benefit of the doubt for being a solid starter for over 500 innings prior to last season?First impressions are important, but everyone deserves a second chance. Santiago got off to an absolutely rotten start with the Twins, but he ended the season pitching well, and there’s reason to believe he could in line for a bounce-back year. Over his final seven starts of 2016, Santiago posted a 3.19 ERA and 1.23 WHIP while limiting hitters to a .207/.294/.389 line. He also may stand to benefit from recent changes in hitting philosophy. Santiago may be the perfect antidote to the "elevate and celebrate" trend so many hitters seem to have (justifiably) gotten behind. Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs recently wrote a pieceabout how pitchers could adjust to that trend. I don't want to give away the whole article (it's well worth your time), but in it Sullivan makes a pretty significant discovery: Homer rates are trending up, but only on pitches in the lower and middle third of the zone. The takeaway? "... conventional wisdom has said the best way to avoid a home run is to pitch down. In truth, at least now, it’s probably to pitch up. High fastballs are associated with homers, but they should really be associated with pop-ups and empty whiffs." It just so happens Santiago’s fastball is pretty nasty up in the zone. His career swinging strike percentage is 8.1%, but that number skyrockets on heaters in the upper third of the strike zone, according to data from BrooksBaseball. ​ To put that into perspective, neither Clayton Kershaw nor Stephen Strasburg have a single spot on the grid where their fastballs have a whiff rate of 20 percent, let alone three. Taking a look at the zone profile of slugging percentage against Santiago over his career, you can see even more evidence that staying up in the zone may be advantageous. With a defense led by Byron “Death To Flying Things” Buxton, the Twins are expected to be above average in the outfield. The infield? Not so much, particularly on the left side. Toss in the fact that BABIP is much higher on ground balls than fly balls and it seems to make a lot of sense for Santiago to try to continue his extreme fly ball ways. He led all qualified pitchers with a 50 percent fly ball rate last season. The Castro bump You can’t talk about Twins pitching these days without dropping the F Word: Framing. What did you think I was gonna say? With the arrival of pitch-presenting guru Jason Castro, the hope is the entire Twins staff will take a step forward, but it seems nobody wants to divvy out any of that hope to Hector. Well, Castro's strengths should actually be particularly well-suited to benefit Santiago. Here's a look at Santiago’s called strike percentage against right-handed hitters from FanGraphs: It's very difficult for lefty pitchers to get that up and away corner called as a strike against right-handed batters, but if anybody's going to help it's Jason Castro. Parker Hageman recently wrote an excellent piece on Castro's framing, er ... proper receiving. In that article, was this graphic showing where Castro excelled in getting strikes called: Castro is a wizard at getting outside strikes called on right-handed batters. Dallas Keuchel, a lefty who has thrown primarily to Castro over his career, gets that high and outside pitch to right-handers called strike called 61 percent of the time. Even a small improvement for Santiago up from 54 percent could go a long way toward him becoming a more effective pitcher. There's also evidence that Santiago has benefited from working with other good pitch framers in the past. Here is a breakdown of all the catchers he’s pitched to for at least 50 innings, sorted by ERA: A.J. Pierzynski: 2.84 ERA, .639 OPS Geovany Soto: 3.00 ERA, .653 OPS Tyler Flowers: 3.41 ERA, .692 OPS Hank Conger: 3.47 ERA, .660 OPS Chris Iannetta: 3.74 ERA, .727 OPS Carlos Perez: 4.26 ERA, .766 OPS The only one of those guys who rated out as a below-average framer during his time as a teammate of Santiago’s, according to StatCorner, is Perez (-6.6 RAA over last two seasons). Santiago had the least amount of success working with Perez. Hmm ... Infield flys rule Another part of the “secret sauce” that has made Santiago a deceptively good pitcher his his ability to induce popups. Santiago ranked ninth among qualified pitchers with a 13.5 IFFB percentage last season. If a pitcher can get a high percentage of strikeouts and infield fly balls, good things are going to happen. Here's a look at how Twins pitchers have fared in those categories over the past five seasons: Santiago: 20.5 K% + 12.1 IFFB% = 32.6 Hughes: 18.6 + 11.5 = 30.1 Santana: 19.3 + 9.5 = 28.8 Gibson: 15.6 + 10.0 = 25.6 What about the WBC? Santiago has been away from the team, pitching in a long relief role for Puerto Rico, but it would appear he's still in good shape to be ready for the regular season. Here's a summary of all his appearances this spring: Feb. 28: 12 pitches March 5: 24 pitches March 11: 42 pitches March 14: 52 pitches March 20: 63 pitches Santiago is scheduled to start for the Twins Sunday. I’d imagine he can crank it up to 80 or so pitches in that start before flirting with 100 in his final warmup game of the spring. Having pitchers in the WBC isn't ideal, but Hector looks like should be ready to go. Plus, I imagine he may have learned a thing or two working with Yadier Molina the past few weeks, so maybe that time away from the team turns out to be beneficial. So, he’s Cy Santiago? I’d love to wrap this up by making some bold prediction that Hector is going to be the ace of the staff and lead the Twins rotation back to respectability, but that’s probably not going to happen. Santiago’s command is spotty, his strikeout rate dropped to a career low last season and you can expect him to still give up his share of walks and home runs. But can we be optimistic about Santiago delivering a solid season? Something in line with his career averages prior to last year? I think so, yet most Twins fans are trying to find ways to run him out of town. There’s a reason Hector has made it this far. When he was drafted in the 30th round, he threw a fastball and … nope, that’s it. One pitch. Over time, he evolved a diverse enough pitch mix to become an effective major league starter. He’s been making adjustments his entire career. It seems unwise to count him out now, especially if you have any faith in Derek Falvey’s ability to foster a pitching staff. Santiago is also hitting free agency for the first time at the end of the year, so there’s all the incentive in the world for him to spin out a good season. Hector Santiago’s time with the Minnesota Twins didn’t get off on the right foot, but he deserves another chance. Click here to view the article

Thanks for these, they're great. I agree on the striking out the side thing. In my mind that's three-straight strikeouts, no other funny business.

I think a lot depends on what kind of a start they get off to. Bad start, they'll probably have a fire sale. Good start, they may try to make one last run with this group of players. What's interesting is the Twins will have a big impact on that start. They play 12 times before the Fourth of July.

Thank you all for adding to the discussion. Just a quick side note to any sailors out there, as far as I'm concerned you can drink as much as you like and spend your money how you see fit. No judgments coming from me ... These deals weren't all prospects, but the Twins kinda tried to do this with the Delmon Young, Alex Meyer and Trevor May trades. They were trading away young players before they hit free agency to get even younger players with more control. Good idea in theory, but those deals did not end up well. I'd also throw out the Josh Donaldson deal as an example of a team flipping a young player for multiple prospects. That has not worked out for the A's, though maybe Franklin Barreto turns out to be a star. This is a good point, but I would be really surprised if the Twins were able to attract both Falvey and Levine without assuring them they would have at least some payroll to work with in the future. It'll be a few years before all the young position players start making big money, if they don't add anything by the time Mauer's contract expires, the payroll is gonna be minuscule. That's just not going to look good after the team said having a new stadium will allow them to increase spending. Did they live up to their salary? No. But even at their reduced production levels, each of those pitchers would have been a massive upgrade to the Twins rotation. If you have one open spot, you realistically have like three. The really good teams stack up seven or eight legit starting options these days. Plus, even if that foursome pans out, I think you still need the old elite Twins defense and a great bullpen in order to be a good team. Maybe that's possible, but we're tallying up a lot of ifs. I actually don't think the org is trying to get younger and build. I think they're trying to win. If they were planning on giving the young guys a shot, Santiago would have been non-tendered, Belisle wouldn't have been signed, Dozier and especially Erv would have been traded by now and they would have gone with a higher upside arm than Haley in the Rule 5. Looking at all the quotes from Jim Pohlad and Derek Falvey, I don't think the Twins have any interest in a full-scale rebuild. If you're not going to rebuild, then you need to build ... build. Upbuild? You need to start adding better players.

Kinda a bummer about Jay, but this is the org trying to put him in the best position to be successful, gotta support that line of thinking. Seems likely he never lives up to the high pick, but you can't worry about stuff like that now, you just gotta do what you can to get the best version of Tyler Jay you can get. On the bright side, this has to mean we're closer to seeing him on the big club, so that's cool.

Yeah, those Zito, Cain and Lincecum deals really crippled that Giants franchise. They've had such a terrible run over the past decade Also, Verlander doesn't deserve to be lumped into that group. He had one bad year. Sabathia on his first deal was great, he gave the Yankees four excellent seasons. I get what you're saying, but there's crazy variance/injury risk for all starting pitchers.

You are correct, sir. But I have no way of editing it If all these guys actually hit the market next year, even if they all have great seasons I'd imagine somebody attractive would land into that $50-90M range just based off there being more supply than demand. Plus, it's possible some teams may look to "save" money next offseason in hopes of having the cash to throw at Harper, Machado or Kershaw after 2018 (assuming they all go to free agency that winter).

He can opt out following the 2018 season. Seems highly likely that he will, unless the Dodgers give him an extension.

If their window opens in 2019, why would it be such a terrible idea to sign a veteran pitcher before the start of the 2018 season? Sure, finding the next Jake Arrieta or Corey Kluber sounds great. It's not that easy. As ridiculous as the track record is of free agents, I think you're more likely to have things work out there than counting on just uncovering a diamond in the rough like that. They should be trying to find those guys, but not counting on it.