Article: What To Do With Phil Hughes?

[tobi0040]

Mr Brooks,

 

The twins usually do the right thing, after exhausting all other alternatives. So expect this swap next spring.

 

It is way too obvious to have happened

[USAFChief]

My guess would be if anyone takes Hughes' place in the rotation, the most likely candidate is Gibson.

[Mr. Brooks]

My guess would be if anyone takes Hughes' place in the rotation, the most likely candidate is Gibson.

Gibson is going to make a min 2 but probably 3 rehab starts before he returns ( per Twins radio broadcast). Something has to be done with Hughes now, if he can't go past 75 pitches.

[tobi0040]

 

Gibson is going to make a min 2 but probably 3 rehab starts before he returns ( per Twins radio broadcast). Something has to be done with Hughes now, if he can't go past 75 pitches.

 

= IF SALARY > $5 million, THEN bad starts > 50.

 

Correia had 54. Pelfrey had 64.

 

By my count Ricky still has at least 7 to go.  Phil has at least 17 left.

 

 

[Mr. Brooks]

Some sharp criticism of Hughes from Brian Murphy.

 

http://www.twincities.com/2016/05/18/brian-murphy-twins-phil-hughes-needs-to-either-pitch-or-rest/

 

 

Hughes actually said out loud, “It’s not so much the pitches than it is the innings. It’s getting up and down that many times is when fatigue starts to set in on it.”

 

It must be exhausting standing up, moving down the bench, grabbing water, taking off a jacket and walking to and from the mound every five days.

 

If Hughes’ words do not infuriate fans or make teammates bug-eyed angry, then everybody gets the flaccid team they deserve.

 

Call it bilateral compete weakness.

 

Hughes is supposed to be a horse. The Twins handsomely rewarded him with a massive contract extension in 2014 following his 16-win season. He is 12-15 in 198 innings over 33 subsequent starts.

 

“It’s not like I can just go out there and grind through,” he said.

 

Jack Morris’ head just exploded.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

What is this history? I have no concept of what you're talking about.

 

I think it's actually pretty admirable that he didn't do the typical tough guy act and stay in a game as he became ineffective. He communicated his health with the team and that may help him in the long run. We've seen too many guys pitch badly through pain and hurt the team. Phil Hughes was a class act not to pitch the extra 1/3 of an inning in 2014 and he's a class act to put the team ahead of himself here.

Here is a Brian Murphy column with extended quotes corroborating what I had suspected. Thank god at least one print writer in this market stepped up on this one. Here is the link if you are interested.

 

http://www.twincities.com/2016/05/18/brian-murphy-twins-phil-hughes-needs-to-either-pitch-or-rest/

[ThejacKmp]

 

Here is a Brian Murphy column with extended quotes corroborating what I had suspected. Thank god at least one print writer in this market stepped up on this one. Here is the link if you are interested.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/05/18/brian-murphy-twins-phil-hughes-needs-to-either-pitch-or-rest/

 

Sorry, was at a wedding all weekend.

 

I'm glad you found the article but I don't see much in there that changes my mind. I'm always siding with a guy knowing his body well enough to know he doesn't have it. If the pen had done its job, this wouldn't be much of a story. We're once again looking to assign blame in hindsight.

 

That said, the Twins should be sending him to the pen after hearing this. If you're not feeling well enough to go more than 70 pitches, it's pen time.

[ThejacKmp]

 

On Suzuki, have you looked at all the catchers that changed teams in the last two years, or just assumed no one better was available? Because, I think if you did, you'd find that plenty of catchers have changed teams in the last 2 off seasons that have been better than Suzuki. Not great, but better.

 

I'm saying go look at all of the free agent catches. Outside of trading for Lucroy or signing Russell, it was a bunch of retreads and guys who profile to be similar to Suzuki.

 

And yeah, some have performed better. But the point is that before you had the benefit of hindsight, none of them looked like they would provide substantially better performance than Suzuki. Catchers who become available, almost by definition are pretty weak hitters with a lot of miles on them.

 

Suzuki wasn't a great choice but there weren't a lot of good options. It's kind of like when you're buying a $1000 car. Yeah in hindsight you could have bought the civic which ran another three years but there was no way of knowing that the civic was better than the accord - they were both $1000 cars.

[ThejacKmp]

 

No, Nick is just wrong about this. It is a bad baseball decision to extend a player (especially a pitcher!!) after a career year when there are two more years under contract. At least wait one more year to see if he can repeat his performance.

 

And if he does, you can no longer afford him because he's a year away from free agency, has done it two years in a row and you're competing with every other team in the league. You just don't get that same deal if you wait a year - you'd be paying $20 million per year. The Twins aren't going to do that - if they wanted to keep Phil Hughes longer, after that season was when to do it, right or wrong.

 

The Twins didn't extend him into his mid 30s, they extended him a few years of his early 30s - gambling that Phil could remain a #1/#2 and would at least be worth a #4 if he regressed some on HR or BB rates. It turned out to be a worst case scenario but hey, that's life. You take risks and hope they pan out. This one was reasonable and the outcome doesn't make it a bad one.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I'm saying go look at all of the free agent catches. Outside of trading for Lucroy or signing Russell, it was a bunch of retreads and guys who profile to be similar to Suzuki.

 

And yeah, some have performed better. But the point is that before you had the benefit of hindsight, none of them looked like they would provide substantially better performance than Suzuki. Catchers who become available, almost by definition are pretty weak hitters with a lot of miles on them.

 

Suzuki wasn't a great choice but there weren't a lot of good options. It's kind of like when you're buying a $1000 car. Yeah in hindsight you could have bought the civic which ran another three years but there was no way of knowing that the civic was better than the accord - they were both $1000 cars.

We've been over this before.  There were a lot of interesting catchers available during that time, some quite cheaply.

 

Francisco Cervelli and Welington Castillo are the first two names that come to mind.  Neither was perfect, obviously, but both were cheap and both would have been perfect partner candidates for Suzuki, and potential replacements, but evidence suggests the Twins didn't even entertain the idea of augmenting Suzuki at the position until a full year after signing his extension.

 

For a rebuilding team to commit so fully to Suzuki after an outlier performance, early (months before the open market that winter), with nothing but Fryer/Herrmann/Pinto in reserve, with an eye toward waiting ~3 years for the likes of Turner or Garver to emerge -- it doesn't take hindsight to tell you that's a bad strategy.

[d-mac]

 

And if he does, you can no longer afford him because he's a year away from free agency, has done it two years in a row and you're competing with every other team in the league. You just don't get that same deal if you wait a year - you'd be paying $20 million per year. The Twins aren't going to do that - if they wanted to keep Phil Hughes longer, after that season was when to do it, right or wrong.

 

The Twins didn't extend him into his mid 30s, they extended him a few years of his early 30s - gambling that Phil could remain a #1/#2 and would at least be worth a #4 if he regressed some on HR or BB rates. It turned out to be a worst case scenario but hey, that's life. You take risks and hope they pan out. This one was reasonable and the outcome doesn't make it a bad one.

 

If he repeats it and we can't afford it, he'd get a king's ransom on the trade market with his original contract. If he does something halfway between 2014 and 2015, then extend him. But if he pulls a 2015, then you have no reason to extend him. Extending players, especially pitchers, after career years is a bad baseball and business decision. End of discussion. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

And if he does, you can no longer afford him because he's a year away from free agency, has done it two years in a row and you're competing with every other team in the league. You just don't get that same deal if you wait a year - you'd be paying $20 million per year. The Twins aren't going to do that - if they wanted to keep Phil Hughes longer, after that season was when to do it, right or wrong.

 

The Twins didn't extend him into his mid 30s, they extended him a few years of his early 30s - gambling that Phil could remain a #1/#2 and would at least be worth a #4 if he regressed some on HR or BB rates. It turned out to be a worst case scenario but hey, that's life. You take risks and hope they pan out. This one was reasonable and the outcome doesn't make it a bad one.

The Twins couldn't potentially afford a $20 million per year player, beginning in 2017, if they had wanted?  The Twins committed $97 million for 7 pitcher seasons, the month that they signed Ervin Santana and extended Phil Hughes.  $100 million for 5 years, for a pitcher they like with a better track record than either Ervin or Hughes circa 2014, was absolutely possible for this club.

 

I think the mistake was deciding, in 2014, that they had to keep Phil Hughes for 2017-2019, to the point they were willing to sacrifice a very nice below-market contract to do it.  Once Ervin was signed, they had a ton of veteran starters under contract for the next few years.  But when they also extended Hughes, they basically removed all the flexibility from that group, and their best shot at getting any excess value from one of those veterans too.

 

Giving all that up because you have a fear of paying $100 mil for 5 years for a pitcher down the road is probably a bad decision.

[USAFChief]

My guess would be if anyone takes Hughes' place in the rotation, the most likely candidate is Gibson.

Per Bollinger, Gibson to the rotation, Hughes to the bullpen.

[USAFChief]

Rogers back to Rochester? Stay with 13 pitchers?

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

no kidding. hoping this helps Phil and the Twins.

[Vanimal46]

Hmm interesting. I'm not opposed to putting Hughes in the pen until he figures out what's ailing him.

[jimmer]

Hughes is best in the bullpen.  Expensive bullpen guy, but that's his best role.  Glad the Twins finally figured that out.

[DocBauer]

Rogers seems to be showing something. I think he stays. I think Boshers goes down, unless they want to give Pressly some AAA time, which I doubt, and he's looked a little better as of late.

 

They wouldn't get crazy, smart crazy like a fox, and send May down to stretch, would they? He also has suddenly looked better recently, but wouldn't it be great to see him start again?

 

I still think it's Boshers, seems to make the most sense, but I love Hughes to the pen. Completely unexpected, but smart and warranted. We have talked before about "scholarships" in regard to veteran players. But Hughes, despite gutting out some solid innings, has not looked at all like himself. Fewer innings, this could allow him to find himself again. And maybe, just maybe, this is his calling and his future.

[jorgenswest]

Is there reason to be concerned that his numbers in the first inning over the last two years are markedly worse than other innings?

 

A starter does face the other teams best hitters in the first inning but it doesn't explain a 11.70 ERA in that inning this year or the 5.04 first inning last year.

[ashbury]

Is there reason to be concerned that his numbers in the first inning over the last two years are markedly worse than other innings?

Yes. But the hope would be that this is due to trying to pace himself for a long outing, and in the bullpen his warmup routine would be different.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I dunno. He got paid mid-rotation money when he was coming off a season where he was a legitimate ace. He was young and was a good prospect finally finding his legs and pitching like scouts long though he could. If he was a #1/#2 starter for the contract it was a great deal but he only had to be a #3/#4 starter for it to make sense. I remember the reaction from press and on TD being, "Huh, that's a pretty fair deal for both sides. I hope it works out."

 

Hindsight is 20-20 and it's easy to call this a terrible decision now but I think that's misguided. Sometimes a move doesn't work out and it's tempting to reflexively call it bad but we need to be wise enough to look back at the context in which it was made.

Here's an hour and half discussion from January 2015 about why the extension was ridiculous

 

http://gleemangeek.libsyn.com/episode-176-hughes-and-stauffer

[tobi0040]

Hughes is best in the bullpen. Expensive bullpen guy, but that's his best role. Glad the Twins finally figured that out.

This was the obvious move. Yet I find myself pleasantly surprised it didn't take longer.

[diehardtwinsfan]

agreed... glad this was the move.  When Nolasco finally gets the DFA, you might actually see May in the rotation for a bit.

[Riverbrian]

I like the precedence that has been set. It shows that even vets can get shuffled about even if it's just a little. 

 

I'm just surprised that Pat Dean was the one who caused it. 

[Mike Sixel]

Very happy Rogers is up, and in the bullpen. Definitely the right role for him.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Honestly with Boshers, I hope he gets more than a 2015 Tonkin chance before he's sent down/DFAd.  He was doing well enough in AAA to warrant a shot. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

So with Hughes to the Bullpen https://mobile.twitter.com/RhettBollinger/status/737332458538962945

and Gibson slotted in to start Thursday, who goes to triple A. Rogers?

[old nurse]

Broken bone above the left knee. I guess that answers the question on what to do with Hughes this year.

[jimmer]

Did that happen when he got hit?

[Danchat]

 

Did that happen when he got hit?

Yep. His season might be over.