Ryan: Berrios will NOT be called up in September

[Secondary User]

 

  On 9/3/2015 at 12:00 PM, Boom Boom said:

As long as Berrios is a pitcher, he could hurt his arm.

He could be called up next June and hurt his arm, or even in Spring Training. That's always going to be a risk.

 

That doesn't mean that you don't do what you can to minimize the risk

[Secondary User]

I actually tried to read this thread (despite the site being extremely slow today), but gave up upon being called a Terry Ryan apologist.  God forbid anyone dare to think Terry Ryan handled a situation correctly.....wait a minute. I never even said he handled it correctly, merely that there were merits to his decision.........

 

Honestly.  It's amazing how quickly Pitchfork Nation turns to that.

[drjim]

 

  On 9/3/2015 at 8:48 PM, howieramone2 said:

He just rebuilt our favorite team for the second time. The next year or so should cement his place in Cooperstown. Millions of knowledgeable and loyal Twins fans regard TR as a savior, not so much the fan board.

I'm downtown on game days quite often. The paying fans are having a great time this season, not so much the fan board.

 

I don't think posts putting Ryan in Cooperstown can be quoted enough.

[howieramone2]

Several Sundays ago, TR was asked why Duffy instead of Berrios. He said Duffy was having the better year. He specifically challenged the number crunchers to examine the numbers. Just a tidbit for those trying to revise history.

[howieramone2]

 

  On 9/3/2015 at 8:50 PM, DaveW said:

GMs who win one playoff series get into Cooperstown?

Does that mean Ruben Amaro will have his own wing?

TR is one of 3 two time Baseball Executive of the Year. When he wins again in the next year or so, Brad Pitt will be the only one with any chance to catch him.

[DaveW]

Let's just say we and by we I mean pretty much everyone will agree to disagree with the thought that Ryan is headed to Cooperstown.

[h2oface]

 

  On 9/3/2015 at 3:11 AM, USAFChief said:

I doubt there's another team in baseball that, in the Twins position, wouldn't have found a way to get Berrios into a post season chase.

Absolutely! And to think Ryan could have been in Toronto this year. My, how things would have been different for Toronto and the league right now.

[Mike Sixel]

Duffey is better than Berrios? Duffey is better than Berrios, that system must be even deeper than I thought, and it makes the Santana signing even more oddly timed....

[Shane Wahl]

 

  On 9/4/2015 at 7:21 PM, howieramone2 said:

Several Sundays ago, TR was asked why Duffy instead of Berrios. He said Duffy was having the better year. He specifically challenged the number crunchers to examine the numbers. Just a tidbit for those trying to revise history.

Really? What, ERA? That's it, correct?!

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

 

  On 9/4/2015 at 7:21 PM, howieramone2 said:

Several Sundays ago, TR was asked why Duffy instead of Berrios. He said Duffy was having the better year. He specifically challenged the number crunchers to examine the numbers. Just a tidbit for those trying to revise history.

That doesn't sound like something Ryan would say, but whatever.

 

Sounds like you and me would both like to hear what Jack Goin's input on this decision was. 

[DaveW]

Ryan said as of 3 days ago that at no time this season did he consider calling Berrios up. I am still waiting for someone to defend that. To be that closed minded because it doesn't jive with your original plan on opening day is simply maddening.

[Secondary User]

 

  On 9/5/2015 at 3:32 AM, DaveW said:

Ryan said as of 3 days ago that at no time this season did he consider calling Berrios up. I am still waiting for someone to defend that. To be that closed minded because it doesn't jive with your original plan on opening day is simply maddening.

 

It's actually quite easy.  They felt the need to have him pitch at AAA, and the number of innings he would have needed between the two levels would have put him too close to ever truly be considered to be called up

 

Whether that's what he was thinking, I have no idea.  Whether the idea to never call him up was the right idea, I don't know.

[howeda7]

Most GM's don't last for two decades +. So in those 20-30 years, it's unfair to want at least a WS appearance?

 

In any case, I didn't say that was the benchmark. I said it was the fact that he will never pick a season to even 'go for it'. Oakland did it last year. It didn't work out, but I still applaud them for doing it.  2015 is not that year for the Twins. But 2016, 17 or 18 might be. And Terry Ryan will play it safe and worry about 2023 and 2024. 20 years of history says so.

 

Calling up Berrios is a fairly minor move that gives the current squad their best chance to make the play-offs. But it was still too much to ask. Too risky. The 30 + innings he's thrown the last 3 weeks for Rochester were somehow less risky. Enjoy watching Mike Pelfrey make 5 more glorious.

 

  On 9/3/2015 at 6:35 AM, Secondary User said:

Most teams don't win a world series during the tenure of their GMs.  If you're going to use World Series as your benchmark for success, prepare to be disappointed.

 

[howeda7]

BS. I was fine with the Jepsen trade and did not advocate trading any top prospects at the deadline. I simply want them to use the 25 best players in the organization. And Kepler and Berrios are better than Pelfrey and Hunter, etc.

  On 9/3/2015 at 6:36 AM, sane said:

 

So you have decided that whatever TR decides to do will be wrong, including promoting Berrios or trading prospects for Jepsen. Ryan's original mortal sin is being employed.

 

[Secondary User]

 

  On 9/5/2015 at 4:36 AM, howeda7 said:

Calling up Berrios is a fairly minor move that gives the current squad their best chance to make the play-offs. But it was still too much to ask. Too risky. The 30 + innings he's thrown the last 3 weeks for Rochester were somehow less risky. Enjoy watching Mike Pelfrey make 5 more glorious.

 

The innings 30 innings he threw were no less risky, but the likelyhood of him generating a significant difference in your playoff odds over those 30 innings (if you even start him up here, and if he even makes it 30 innings) is not that large.  So now you've called him up, maybe you've made your team better in the short term, maybe not, and you've used a year of control and you're still going to have to shut him down Sept. 10th anyway

 

Again....as a fan, I wanted to see him up here. But I can understand a GM's rationale for not, and if I were a GM, I don't know if I'd do it any differently

[glunn]

Moderator note -- there have been credible arguments on both sides of lots of issues here.  There has also been some bickering.  Please keep your posts respectful, especially when you strongly disagree.

[Major League Ready]

 

  On 9/4/2015 at 8:40 PM, mike wants wins said:

Duffey is better than Berrios? Duffey is better than Berrios, that system must be even deeper than I thought, and it makes the Santana signing even more oddly timed....

 

  On 9/4/2015 at 8:40 PM, mike wants wins said:

Duffey is better than Berrios? Duffey is better than Berrios, that system must be even deeper than I thought, and it makes the Santana signing even more oddly timed....

Mike, I don’t think this was a baseball decision, at least not purely a baseball decision.  This was about “keeping” the fan Base.  It looks to me like the FO said we can’t have another 90 loss season even if it could be detrimental to our future.  I think the majority of what we saw here on TD after the signing.  Most of the posters here were for it and said you can never have enough pitching or prospects don’t work out or simply put the best team on the field right now, etc.   I did not care for the signing but the FO is responsible for running a business so I can’t fault them too much if their business intelligence suggested the business would suffer over an extended period if they did not improve substantially.

 

Frankly, the move that perplexes me even more than signing Santana was extending Hughes after signing Santana.  Why not wait until the end of this season, especially given we May and Meyer were at the point where we would have a much better idea on them a year later and we had several pitching prospects that had the potential to be ML SPs that another year would provide a clearer view.   Had we not extended Hughes, he could have more easily been moved at the deadline or we could put him in the pen next year and put the guys in the rotation that belong there long-term, starting with May, Gibson, Berrios, and perhaps Duffey.    Santana and those four would look pretty good next year.

 

There might be hope.  I would think another team would trade a C level prospect for Nolasco if we eat 3-4M/yr of his contract.  He only has 2 years left so this translate to 2 yrs and 16-18M if he were a free agent given a C prospect has modest value.  I could see that happening.  If it does not happen in the off-season, w will have to hope he pitches well enough to be moved by the ASB.  Some here will say the FO will not subsidize his contract but from a business perspective, the replacement for the Twins is Berrios or Duffey so they save big even if they eat 6-8M.  If this happens, we actually look pretty good with Santana/May/Hughes/Gibson/Berrios/Milone/Duffey.

[Teddy]

This was exactly the right move by TR. Had he brought up Berrios, they'd have had to remove a player from the 40-man roster.  Berrios wouldn't have pitched much anyway due to their long-term concern over his innings pitched, so better to let the machine stay hungry over the winter and come in next spring for a shot at the rotation. He'll certainly be better than Pelphrey next year.

[ashbury]

  On 9/5/2015 at 2:15 PM, Teddy said:

This was exactly the right move by TR. Had he brought up Berrios, they'd have had to remove a player from the 40-man roster.  

Losing someone like Aaron Thompson, were that to happen, would be only a minor matter - he's probably cut at the end of the season anyway.

 

Of more importance is that Berrios does not yet need to be protected from rule-5 next December.So having him on the 40-man immediately means someone else doesn't get protected.

 

Berrios can be added to the 40-man next year at whatever point he makes the team. Adding him now would add up to a lot of trouble, in return for a very speculative benefit to this year's post-season push.

[gopherman23]

Berrios has pitched the 8th most innings in the entire Minor Leagues, and he still has a start left. I went back the last 5 years to see how many teams let their top pitching prospect touch close to 170 innings exclusively in the minors. Couldn't find one.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Here is an interesting wrinkle on this debate. We'll see how the Mets play it.

 

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/147594872/matt-harvey-doctor-gave-me-180-innings-limit

[ShouldaCouldaWoulda]

 

  On 9/5/2015 at 11:14 PM, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

Here is an interesting wrinkle on this debate. We'll see how the Mets play it.

 

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/147594872/matt-harvey-doctor-gave-me-180-innings-limit

There is no injury concerns with Berrios that he is coming back from of battling. A pitcher can get hurt, with limited innings, and a guy can stay healthy with a heavy workload. It is all circumstantial, mechanics, genetics, recent history vs previous years history, etc. Hell, it could just be one odd slightly weird movement that slightly tears something, and don't notice, but then pitch again and tear something. 

 

Everyone pitcher is different, and some are likely more prone to tearing than others, just like football players and ACL's. It isn't carriers that matter as much, but the player himself, along with many other small variables. However, Berrios is not a big guy. I guess I don't know that really matters in workload or being more likely to be injured though.

[stringer bell]

Not the same thing. It's also not the same thing to compare a college pitcher versus Berrios.

 

However, reading through this thread, different posters seem to visualize different roles for Berrios if he would be promoted. In my mind, the Twins should have saved innings for JO and put him in the rotation with postseason on the line. They didn't and really then the die was cast. Using Berrios in the 'pen presents some problems. Add to that the consequences for service time, possible arm wear on a 21-year-old and 40-man issues.

[stringer bell]

To my knowledge, Berrios has never pitched in relief with the exception of the WBC (which is in March). I don't know if he's suited for relief. Does his velo go up, can he get loose quickly, how is he pitching out of the stretch, can he hold runners? I'm pretty confident that the Twins know better than the Twins Daily posters. They have converted May to to a late-inning role. It took what, a month? To many questions for me to say it was a slam dunk to promote him.

 

I still think they should have, but I realize there are reasons why he didn't get called up.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 9/3/2015 at 2:28 PM, drjim said:

Starting pitchers? Much less frequent recently. Here are the amount of pitchers each year that were 21 and younger and made more than one start in a season.

 

2015: 2 (Severino and McCullers)

2014: 2 (Walker and Fernandez)

2013: 3 (Walker, Fernandez, Skaggs)

2012: 6

2011: 9

2010: 5

2009: 7

 

For some reason it has dropped in recent years, so does seem to be the trend.

The trend in these numbers may be different than what you claim, though.

 

Could be that other changes are lowering the number of 21 year old starters on the cusp on MLB like Berrios, not necessarily that MLB teams are holding back those few 21 year old starters who reach that point. Drafting, low minors development, earlier TJ surgery, etc.

 

You'd really have to look at minor league numbers and prospect lists to get a better idea.  If I get time, I'll try.

[Kwak]

 

  On 9/5/2015 at 5:23 PM, ashburyjohn said:

Losing someone like Aaron Thompson, were that to happen, would be only a minor matter - he's probably cut at the end of the season anyway.

 

Of more importance is that Berrios does not yet need to be protected from rule-5 next December.So having him on the 40-man immediately means someone else doesn't get protected.

 

Berrios can be added to the 40-man next year at whatever point he makes the team. Adding him now would add up to a lot of trouble, in return for a very speculative benefit to this year's post-season push.

I'm sorry, this is the second lamest excuse (first is the ~160 innings limit) used for this discussion.  There are numerous names that are expendable right now.  Additionally, should a team select a player they are obligated to keep said player on the Active Roster  (like the Twins are doing with Graham) for the entire season  or give him back to the Twins.  There will be sufficient players who just plain aren't ready and wasting a spot on the Active Roster is unjustifiable.  Please consider, that much of the discussion of a Berrios promotion is caused by the wastage of an Active Roster spot for Graham in the first place.  The Twins need(ed) a quality, veteran RP--but can't have one one, because of Graham.  

 

True, this season has been far more successful (in Wins/Loss record and playoff contention) than was expected in the preseason--but to not take full advantage of "unexpected success" is just plain wrong on so many accounts.

[drjim]

  On 9/7/2015 at 9:34 PM, spycake said:

The trend in these numbers may be different than what you claim, though.

 

Could be that other changes are lowering the number of 21 year old starters on the cusp on MLB like Berrios, not necessarily that MLB teams are holding back those few 21 year old starters who reach that point. Drafting, low minors development, earlier TJ surgery, etc.

 

You'd really have to look at minor league numbers and prospect lists to get a better idea. If I get time, I'll try.

You could certainly be right. It was a quick search to see numbers.

 

My sense is teams are quicker with bats and a little slower with arms (esp starters) recently, but I have not done the research.

[DaveW]

I remember early in the season USA today did a full feature on Berrios, he said his first and biggest goal for 2015 was making it to the big leagues, even if that was aggressive.

 

We can talk about pitch limits, etc all day until we are blue in the face, but I don't see how Berrios doing nothing but dominating every level didn't at least earn himself a spot on the major league roster at some point. Honestly, he should have been up 4 weeks ago to replace Pelfrey, if you shut him down, or limit his starts/innings at that point, fine, but he more than earned his shot with the big league club, and he hasn't been "blocked" for some time now.