Article: Nolasco Presents a Big Problem

[righty8383]

Trade him to the Pirates.

[ltwedt]

It's just very discouraging to see yet another pitcher go in the tank when they get here, and pitchers that have been here and have gone other places get better - the common denominator??? Andy and Gardy!

[rukavina]

Can anyone recall Gardy using that kind of language on a veteran? Makes me wonder if Nolasco is somehow willfully screwing up.

[jtkoupal]

It starts with his fastball. His fastball sets up everything. He hasn't been able to control it. To make it worse, he can't control his breaking pitch either. He gets behind hitters and then throws a meatball over the plate that gets crushed.

 

If Ricky has any chance of turning things around, he MUST control his fastball. I think some bullpen time is what he needs.

[clutterheart]

Kris Johnson

Look into his stats both this year and last year. He is someone who should start getting on the Radar

[pierre75275]

Mayb we could fly up the pitching coach from Pittsburg to take a look

[TheLeviathan]

I'm with Nicksaviking, if he fails.....ok. It stinks, but it does happen. Just don't stop wading aggressively into FA. This move was far more important for that reason than the actual results. (Which is sad, results should matter, but with this club just the effort was a welcome change)

[tarheeltwinsfan]

With over 1,000 IP at a 4.37 under his belt prior to this year, I really hope this is an anomoly. I am guessing it is and he will normalize at some point to a slightly higher ERA than that.

 

He'll "normalize" for 2014 only if he has a 2.84 ERA for the rest of 2014. Here's my new cheer for the rest of the year..."Go Nolasco! Normalize!" I hope he does.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Mayb we could fly up the pitching coach from Pittsburg to take a look

 

Now that's funny, I don't care who you are.

[adjacent]

Can anyone recall Gardy using that kind of language on a veteran? Makes me wonder if Nolasco is somehow willfully screwing up.

I agree with you, coming from Gardy that's unusual. More than willfully screwing up, maybe they sense a lack of effort intensity, like "I've got my contract so I don't have to work that hard" thing. I could be totally wrong, but it gives that impression.

[tobi0040]

He'll "normalize" for 2014 only if he has a 2.84 ERA for the rest of 2014. Here's my new cheer for the rest of the year..."Go Nolasco! Normalize!" I hope he does.

 

I was suggesting he will get back to throwing near his career ERA from here on out. Not that he will end the year with his career ERA.

[laloesch]

"Trevor May is out with an injury; Alex Meyer has been extremely inconsistent and also hasn't thrown more than 90 pitches in a game since early May. Neither is MLB-ready.

 

I suppose the Twins could go with someone like Kris Johnson or Logan Darnell, but they've already got Yohan Pino plugged in and when you're looking at multiple Triple-A non-prospects filling the big-league rotation, you start to feel a nauseating sense of deja vu."

 

 

Generally agree with your post. Nolasco has been a HUGE disappointment so far. Far worse than anyone of us would have imagined when he signed that contract.

 

It could be a combination of moving to the AL, pitching for a new team, moving to a new city, etc. One thing is for certain he has to get this figured out. I am in general agreement that Anderson is probably not helping matters, but I too have heard that Rick is a bit hard to coach as well.

 

Suzuki should shoulder some of the blame as well. I think his plate calling skills are a bit overrated, but its clear the brunt of this falls on Nolasco's shoulders. And for once I'm actually glad that Gardy is calling out a player..... this time anyways. Ricky has been inexcusably terrible so far.

 

That said, I don't think he should be benched. He's under contract for three more years, make him earn that money.

 

I disagree though regarding the TWins minor league options. Johnson and Darnell are both viable filler options and May is ready.

 

If he hadn't suffered the oblique injury and been slated for the futures game he'd have been called up by now. Plus he's logged almost 450+ innings since 2011, 300 of which are AA and higher.

 

He will likely get called up after July 13 and the futures game. Especially if Correia is traded and Pino continues to falter. I do agree though about Meyer. Alex is simply not ready yet although he has shown flashes of brilliance this season. Give him another season in AAA and he will be ready.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

I was suggesting he will get back to throwing near his career ERA from here on out. Not that he will end the year with his career ERA.

 

I understand. I was just trying to be funny. Rereading my post, I could see how it may have offended you and I apologize.

[ashbury]

Why can't you option him? Or bullpen him? A terrible move by the front office.

 

I'm unclear. They haven't (to my knowledge) made a recent "move" regarding Nolasco. Or are you saying option/bullpen would be a terrible move?

 

Given that they have signed NUMEROUS FA pitchers over the years, and only 1 has worked

 

Jack Morris?

[ashbury]

He'll "normalize" for 2014 only if he has a 2.84 ERA for the rest of 2014. Here's my new cheer for the rest of the year..."Go Nolasco! Normalize!" I hope he does.

 

Yes, it was sobering when I looked at his ERA after the game and realized that to end up with a sub-3.00 ERA for the season he would now have to pitch shutouts every single game from here on out.

[Mike Sixel]

Sorry, that seemed clear. ....I am saying they should do something, and that signing him was a bad move.

 

Morris was signed by a different GM, in the dome, for a huge contract, even though I am told they were not able to do that.

[tobi0040]

I understand. I was just trying to be funny. Rereading my post, I could see how it may have offended you and I apologize.

 

I missed the sarcasm, but I am not offended in the least bit. No worries.

[Kelly Vance]

Suzuki doesn't make Nolasco's pitches hang up above the belt and drift in slow motion. Rickety is throwing meat, out over the plate and he is getting clobbered. Pure and simple.

[Kelly Vance]

Rickey throws meat up and in the middle of the plate. No command of the strike zone at all.

[Dantes929]

I think mostly we have learned that the Twins shouldn't sign 4-4.5ERA National Leaguers. I always considered them to be stopgap anyway. Saying neither May nor Meyer are major league ready is just opinion. I am guessing when they are on they can do nearly as well as they have in the minors but it is just a guess and we won't know til they get up here. Viola wasn't great right off the bat. They need to eventually either succeed or take their lumps at the top level. Somewhat encouraging is that all the starters but Nolasco are below 5 in ERA which wasn't the case a year ago. Replace him with Deduno and all of them will be below 5.00. Not great bu significant progress.

[ashbury]

Sorry, that seemed clear. ....I am saying they should do something, and that signing him was a bad move.

 

Morris was signed by a different GM, in the dome, for a huge contract, even though I am told they were not able to do that.

 

I was kidding about Morris, obviously he's ancient history that doesn't pertain and the smiley face was there to avoid any serious discussion arising from him. Morris is always the answer when FA pitching comes up, it's pretty much like adding Duensing to any trade for a star.

 

I wanted to make sure what I thought you were saying about the move. If signing him was a bad move, then it's only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. I normally don't like digging out people's words, and the TD search for the term "Nolasco" only goes back to February anyway, but I don't find many posters saying it was bad move then, including you.

 

A move is bad only at the time it is made. After that, you have an underperfoming member of the team. They should do something, but questioning the move isn't productive, inviting criticism of the very thing most folks were clamoring for the FO to do. We all had our preferences whom to get, but no one at the time stated that Nolasco would be the worst starter in the league at the All-Star Break.

[Mike Sixel]

2014 Twins starting pitching:

WAR rank: 20 ---- 9 place jump

ERA rank: 29th----1 place jump

runs allowed per game: .625 from being median---that's worse, runs are down across the league

 

 

2013 rankings:

WAR: 29th

ERA: 30th

runs allowed per game: .5 runs from median in the league

 

*the last calculation was done quickly, hope I didn't mess it up......but you need to compare the Twins not only to each other, but the rest of the league. Distance from median is a good measurement, imo.

[jay]

This perfectly exemplifies how difficult it is to BUILD from free agency. For whatever reason you prescribe to, the Twins had/have a shortage of MLB starting pitcher talent. When looking to build 4/5's of a rotation from free agency over two offseasons, it's inevitable that some of those guys are going to miss.

 

It's unfortunate that Nolasco has been that so far, but I'm almost certain that:

a) It's too early to judge his 4 year contract.

It is both easy and fair to expect more than one of the FA SP acquisitions to flop regardless of being the best or worst front office.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I wasn't a Nolasco fan, but I said at the time I was still thrilled that the front office finally had the courage to partake in free agency. I'm still glad they tried.

 

I just hope that wasting good money in free agency teaches the front office that they were only wrong about what kind of pitcher to get doesn't actually scare them away from it altogether.

 

This was all my first thought as well. I could really see the Nolasco deal being trotted out by the FO as an example of "we tried free agency, and it just doesn't work."

[naobermiller]

"Trevor May is out with an injury; Alex Meyer has been extremely inconsistent and also hasn't thrown more than 90 pitches in a game since early May. Neither is MLB-ready.

 

Meyer is on a pitch and innings count after his shoulder injury last year. It was a long shot to see him this year, and with us not competing, I wouldn't expect it.

[Mike Sixel]

I almost agree with you....but we don't have the reams of data and the job responsbility to be right about who we sign, the Twins do......and other than Hughes and Morris, it is hard to find a time they've been right about FA SP signings making a difference to the team in a positive way.

 

I am almost sure I typed something like this:

 

"I am glad they are finally opening up their pocket books, but I have no idea if this move is a good one or not specifically. We won't know that until he pitches here, but at least they are tryting to get better. But, we should judge them on whether or not they are right."

 

I could literally have signed two SP this offseason, anyone could sign two FA SP each offseason if they'd spend the money. Succeeding at doing that more often than not is what should suggest success or not....shouldn't it?

 

To a point on this thread or another, the process for making a decision is often more important than the outcome, in determining if you should continue to make the same kind of decision. We don't know what process they followed, and we never will. Since we don't know that, all we can really do is judge them on whether they are right or not.

 

I guess the other way is to look at how the "experts" you trust react at the time of the move......did they like or not the deal? If we had perfect information, or even close to it, we should judge moves primarily when they are made, but we don't......

[Mike Sixel]

This perfectly exemplifies how difficult it is to BUILD from free agency. For whatever reason you prescribe to, the Twins had/have a shortage of MLB starting pitcher talent. When looking to build 4/5's of a rotation from free agency over two offseasons, it's inevitable that some of those guys are going to miss.

 

It's unfortunate that Nolasco has been that so far, but I'm almost certain that:

a) It's too early to judge his 4 year contract.

It is both easy and fair to expect more than one of the FA SP acquisitions to flop regardless of being the best or worst front office.

 

How is that different than the draft, other than the money part? The key being, once they decide it was a mistake ( and I am not saying they should do so already), they need to act appropriately, and not worry about sunk cost or loyalty to veterans or whatever. They were great at that with Blackburn, btw.

[jay]

How is that different than the draft, other than the money part? The key being, once they decide it was a mistake ( and I am not saying they should do so already), they need to act appropriately, and not worry about sunk cost or loyalty to veterans or whatever. They were great at that with Blackburn, btw.

 

That money part is an incredibly big difference though. I do agree that both are crapshoots, if that's what you were saying. Free agency is just a much, much more expensive crapshoot for ALL teams...

[Mike Sixel]

Agreed, the money is a big difference. I would hope that free agency is less of a crap shoot, given the significant difference in information.

[Brandon]

I thought the move to sign Nolasco was a real good one. I still think he has value. I do think he needs a break to get away and restart. Hopefully the allstar break is enough. but something needs to change. Has the back up catcher caught him at all? someone mentioned it could be working with Suzuki earlier in this post.