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Article: Twins Select JR Graham, Lose Gilmartin

Seth Stohs

By Seth Stohs
in Twins Daily Front Page News

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DaveW All-Star

DaveW

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Gilmartin might not be a hard thrower or the most spectacular pitcher ever, but he is valuable in that the Twins don't have a lot of Left-handed starters.  Losing two of them in the Rule V could leave them pretty thin if they don't get Gilmartin back (which they probably will).

I'm not sure I really buy into this "you must have a lefty in the rotation at all costs" thought that has been prevalent in baseball for seemingly forever. Yes, having a dominating front of the rotation LHP is the gold standard in baseball commodity's, but if we are talking about a #5/AAAA back of the rotation type, I don't see a real advantage in keeping the LHP over the RHP.

 

I'm not saying Gilmartin is automatically a AAAA type, just at this point I don't think the fact that he is a LHP should save him.

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DaveW All-Star

DaveW

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I think the minor league Rule 5 guys are for keeps, and can be assigned anywhere.  Brian Buscher was a minor league Rule 5 guy that we assigned to AA to start.

Buscher, I remember when Nick N used to proclaim he was the future of 3rd for the Twins :)

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nicksaviking All-Star

nicksaviking

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Agreed, Duensing is nothing particularly special, but he has been proven to be at least averagely effective in a major league bullpen which does have value.

 

And it was a looooooong journey to get him to the point of being an average reliever.  I'd expect an equally long and even more unlikely journey for Gilmartin to match him.

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James GCL Twins

James

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How does this all fall out with the 40-man? Graham just exchange with Gilmartin?

Gilmartin wasn't on the 40-man roster, which is why the Mets were able to claim him.  Graham will be on the 40-man roster, and will have to be on the 25-man MLB roster all season for him to be controlled by the Twins.  If he doesn't stay on the MLB roster the entire season, Graham has to be offered back to the Braves for $25K (The Twins had to pay $50K to grab him in this draft).  If for some reason the Braves don't want to pay the money, he now under control of the Twins and they are free to option him to the minors.  

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nater79a Draft Eligible

nater79a

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One of the nice things about having a deep minor league system is that we can offer up a player to the Braves to keep Graham around, even if it's not on the 25-man.Give Graham a few innings in spring training. If he shows enough promise but we don't want to bring him north, offer a player to the Braves that they might like. Then he can develop further at Chatanooga or Rochester. Especially important if we want to convert Graham to a reliever.

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nater79a Draft Eligible

nater79a

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Tomshaw will be the biggest loss from the 2 pitchers.  Miami found a knuckle ball gem.  Chattanooga Lookouts vs Jacksonville Suns (Miami) in early April.  Look forwad to the match up.  Underrated Prospect

 

Can anybody think of any famous left-handed knuckleballers that played in the major leagues? I can come up with Wilbur Wood from the 60's/70's and Bobby Shantz who played in the 50's and early 60's.  Sure there are some others.

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ashbury Cooperstown

ashbury

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Can anybody think of any famous left-handed knuckleballers that played in the major leagues? I can come up with Wilbur Wood from the 60's/70's and Bobby Shantz who played in the 50's and early 60's.  Sure there are some others.

Here's a list someone came up with a while back:

 

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090118165605AAb4hf8

 

Gene Bearden comes closest to "famous", after the two you named.

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shs_59 College Ball

shs_59

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Well Graham > than Gilmartin anyways....

 

 

I like it.  Neither player looks lke much, Gilmartin may have a better chance sticking on the Mets than Graham on the suddenly "full" twins staff....... But Neither player has a huge upside.

 

I just think Grahahm has a bit more than Gilmartin.

 

Like the move.

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kab21 GCL Twins

kab21

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I was a bit higher on Gilmartin than the Twins were apparently. Good luck to him. Personally, I'd have kept him and not picked up another reliever, but who knows.

 

Graham isn't really a RP'er but it's his only chance of sticking with the Twins for a year.  And gilmartin is so far down the pecking order that he was unlikely to ever wear a Twins uniform.  Graham imo has the profile to move into a power reliever role (or be a complete bust).  gilmartin looks like AAA fodder.  Even when he was a good prospect he didn't strike out many guys.

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twinscowboysbulls Draft Eligible

twinscowboysbulls

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Say what you want about Diamond, but the Twins did get 2.4 WAR out of him a couple years ago. That alone makes him a really nice "snag" in the rule 5/later trade.

 

I like the Graham pick up, its the definition of a no risk/high reward type play. Even if he doesn't fully recover his prospect status/100 MPH fastball he still could slot into the bullpen. The Twins aren't going to be real competitive anyways, and stashing a guy in the bullpen isn't a hard thing to do even if you are competitive. I look forward to watching him pitch (much more so then Swarzak and the other "long" guys of years past)

 

I agree with you Mack, Its been a while.

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diehardtwinsfan Minnesota Twins

diehardtwinsfan

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I sure hope we see Nick Burdi and Jake Reed before we see Graham in the pen. My bet is a trade will happen when he doesn't come close to making the team, or he will be returned.

Graham is a rule 5 guy, you WILL see him in MN this year if they decide to keep him as he has to stay on the roster all season long.  That said, I think you're going to see quite a bit of turnover in the pen this season.

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kab21 GCL Twins

kab21

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Graham is a rule 5 guy, you WILL see him in MN this year if they decide to keep him as he has to stay on the roster all season long.  That said, I think you're going to see quite a bit of turnover in the pen this season.

Yes, for example Ryan Pressly (Rule 5) was up for one year with the Twins and didn't do half bad (ERA wise) but he spent the next year in the minors.  Graham will be given every chance to make the Twins bullpen (assuming the Twins project him there) and even if he does prospects won't be blocked for long.  The Twins bullpen is WEAK after Perkins.

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ashbury Cooperstown

ashbury

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Graham is a rule 5 guy, you WILL see him in MN this year if they decide to keep him as he has to stay on the roster all season long. 

Minor quibble, I believe the teams still have the choice to work something out.  That's how Scott Diamond wound up pitching a lot for Rochester in 2011, for example.

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biggentleben GCL Twins

biggentleben

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I like this pick, I might have gone with Cody Martin over Graham.  Still, I like the idea of seeing what we might have in Graham.  A pitcher coming back from injuries does have some red flags but if he does come all the way back, he could be pretty good.  If not, he could be a strong pen piece.

 

As far as a reliever, Martin might be the better option.  He was a highly-thought-of college reliever who went before most thought he would in the draft as a reliever because the Braves wanted to make him a starter.  He's really a AAAA guy as a starter, but with his control and movement, reducing him to 2-3 pitches instead of 4 and putting him in the pen would make him a very good reliever.

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biggentleben GCL Twins

biggentleben

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From a big, big J.R. Graham fan, I'll give a bit of a profile for you:

 

He's not going to be back to the 100-mph.  The Braves have been quite quiet with his medicals after the first major shoulder surgery, and it's harder to get firm information in the minor leagues, but there are some writers in Mississippi who believed Graham had as many as 3 cleanup procedures in the shoulder and one other "major procedure" other than the first procedure.

 

Graham's stuff has always been very, very hittable.  His fastball is very heavy, and he got a lot of his outs by guys not being able to square up his stuff that seemed to sink differently on every single pitch.  His sinker this last year was extremely predictable, and at times it was very straight.  This has been an issue since 2013 for him, which does explain his jump in hit rate over the last two years.  Many point to his FIP the last two seasons, which has been around 3.25 over a time that he sported roughly a 5 ERA, specifically citing his higher BABIP levels in the last two seasons, but much of that has to do with Graham's batted balls changing profile.  He still isn't giving up home runs, but his balls were being squared up much more and driven, and specifically by right handed batters.  A guy who typically sported a huge differential between righties and lefties completely reversed course in 2014, and RHB hit .311/.372/.424 off of Graham after he'd never allowed better than a .626 OPS against righties in his minor league career to that point.

 

The final nail in the coffin for the Braves was when Graham was placed into the bullpen this year, a move he fought strongly against, and then proceeded to fail terribly, giving up nearly a 1.000 OPS in his relief innings.  Yes, very small sample size, but a guy who had a profile of Derek Lowe just two years ago before the shoulder stuff simply couldn't get guys out anymore, and the Braves didn't protect him accordingly.

 

I think if he's going well, he's a ground ball machine who will be a huge asset in a bullpen, but if 2014 Graham is what's expected going forward, the Twins may choose to DL him and stash him for a year while encouraging yet another procedure on his arm.

 

The first thought I had when I saw the Twins had picked him rather than Martin was that they were going to do as the Braves will do with Daniel Winkler this year, and keep him on the major league DL all season to then allow them to put him into the minors in their system in 2016 and bypass Rule V issues.

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