Game Score: Twins 9, Red Sox 6

[prouster]

5 hours ago, bighat said:

Ober and Jax?!?!

What about Shoemaker, Happ, Maeda, Pineda, Duffey, Robles, Rogers, Alcala, Barnes, Gant, Minaya, Colome, Dobnak, Law, Stashak and Thorpe!?!?!?!?!

My Lord.

Do you really think the pitching staff and their coaches have done a satisfactory job this year?

I think many of the pitchers have done a really bad job this year. But Duffey has a 115 ERA+. 125 for Rogers. 101 for Pineda. Those three have been between average and very good. 89 for Maeda, who has been hurt. Slightly worse for Robles, who isn’t on the team anymore. Alcala is at 85. He’s hurt and put up much better numbers last year. He can probably be explained as someone still in development. Barnes is a rookie who’s like 10th on the depth chart. Gant has been on the team for three weeks. Not sure what you’re expecting there. Minaya’s ERA+ is 121. He’s been good. Law, Dobnak, Thorpe, and Stashak have barely pitched this year. The only true clunkers are Happ (traded), Shoemaker (cut), and Colome (still blowing saves a couple nights per week).

I’m not sure what any pitching coach could do for those three. Tell them to throw more strikes?

[prouster]

5 hours ago, KFEY93 said:

Nope

Haha, alright then. I guess your mind is made up!

[RonCoomersOPS]

23 minutes ago, prouster said:

I’m not sure what any pitching coach could do for those three. Tell them to throw more strikes?

There's always "throw more low and away fastballs," which is roughly the pitching equivalent to "hit the ball the other way and use your speed."

[LA VIkes Fan]

3 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

We all kept asking why too, but had as much luck then as we have with Rocco now.  Managers just think that the RP will figure it out. 

Hey, who else is Rocco going to run out there to close? Kyle Barraclough? Juan Minaya (actually, he might be an upgrade)? Garza? Garcia? Caleb Theilbar? Tyler Duffy remains missing in action, Rogers is hurt, Alcala is hurt and wasn't great, Coulombe has had is run is now back to being mediocre, and we all cheered when Robles left town. This isn't the manager's fault. 

I kind of understand why we haven't gone to bringing up the AAA bullpen with the attendant 40 man issues, effect on the Saints title push, etc. I just don't agree with it.  It's time to bring up Hamilton and Moran, and I would give Vasquez a shot with them. Push some combination of Barraclough, Garcia, Garza, Coulombe and yes, even Astudillo and Simmons off the 40 man if that's what we need to do. 

One question. When we add 2 people on 9/1 do they have to go on the 40 man or do we get a "free" look? Might explain some of the head scratching decisions. 

 

[MMMordabito]

5 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

What a chase - Colome still has time to catch up with some of Davis numbers.  And I would hate to try to find all the worst relievers we have had.  

Post 2017 Hindenberger would be a good start! I still would take Colome over him.

[LA VIkes Fan]

5 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Have you looked at the most recent AL pitching stats?

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2021-standard-pitching.shtml

 

We ARE doing better than Baltimore in most areas, so I guess 14th out of 15 is something our pitching coach can hang his hat on.

 

BTW, we also have the OLDEST average age of our pitching staff. Yeesh. A feather in Falvine's cap to boot.

Having an older pitching staff at the beginning of the year actually made sense; it just doesn't make sense now. If you think you're a contender, you tend to have an older pitching group at AAA so you want guys with some MLB experience to pitch when there are injuries rather than prospects. The Dodgers do exactly the same thing if you look at their AAA roster.  You want guys like Coulombe, Theilbar, Law, Barraclough, etc. who have pitched in the bigs. They are better short term fill ins on a contending team than untested propects. 

What doesn't make sense is keeping them now. Do we really think Law, Barraclough or Coulombe will be on the team next year making a contribution? Theilbar I can see. A lot of this has to do with either keeping the Saints' season rolling or suppressing service time. Other wise, this makes no sense. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

4 hours ago, dex8425 said:

Wow, negative 2.7 WAR for a reliever is really bad. Why in the world did he get 58 innings?! OPS against over 1,000 for the season is incredible. 

Take this tidbit of information and store it in some back closet of your mind, ready to come out whenever anyone implies that 1980s (and earlier) baseball was anything other than incredibly, incredibly stupid.

Yes, it was more fun but it was also incredibly, incredibly stupid.

[dogsday]

2 hours ago, prouster said:

I think many of the pitchers have done a really bad job this year. But Duffey has a 115 ERA+. 125 for Rogers. 101 for Pineda. Those three have been between average and very good. 89 for Maeda, who has been hurt. Slightly worse for Robles, who isn’t on the team anymore. Alcala is at 85. He’s hurt and put up much better numbers last year. He can probably be explained as someone still in development. Barnes is a rookie who’s like 10th on the depth chart. Gant has been on the team for three weeks. Not sure what you’re expecting there. Minaya’s ERA+ is 121. He’s been good. Law, Dobnak, Thorpe, and Stashak have barely pitched this year. The only true clunkers are Happ (traded), Shoemaker (cut), and Colome (still blowing saves a couple nights per week).

I’m not sure what any pitching coach could do for those three. Tell them to throw more strikes?

Happ with St. Louis, IP22.2, H17, ER5, K19. Of course, half that is against Pittsburgh. Maybe the Twins tried to pitch him against too many different teams.

[Thegrin]

Closisng with Colome is as mistifying as leading off Kepler or batting Rooker 2nd.  If Arraez is playing, he should be leading off. His OBP alone screams that. 

[prouster]

1 hour ago, dogsday said:

Happ with St. Louis, IP22.2, H17, ER5, K19. Of course, half that is against Pittsburgh. Maybe the Twins tried to pitch him against too many different teams.

Interestingly, Happ pitched really well in his lone start against Pittsburg with the Twins: 7.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, and 3 K. For his sake, maybe he should go against the Pirates more often.

[jkcarew]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Take this tidbit of information and store it in some back closet of your mind, ready to come out whenever anyone implies that 1980s (and earlier) baseball was anything other than incredibly, incredibly stupid.

Yes, it was more fun but it was also incredibly, incredibly stupid.

No…this was another sad chapter, unique to the Twins. You didn’t need WAR to know that Puckett and Ripken and Mattingly were good, and you didn’t need it to know Davis was bad.

Problem was, Davis was a big get (and “expensive”) in a trade for Smalley with the Yankees. Davis was ‘good’ with the Yankees. And more to the point, this was the Calvin Griffith Twins!! It took the new regime one disastrous year to move him out of leverage. And before the end of the 1986 season sited, he was dumped in a trade.

During the 1970’s and first half of the 80’s, mlb modernized quite a bit, but you wouldn’t have seen it following the Twins.

[dogsday]

18 hours ago, prouster said:

Interestingly, Happ pitched really well in his lone start against Pittsburg with the Twins: 7.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, and 3 K. For his sake, maybe he should go against the Pirates more often.

I think that means he has carved out a role as POOGY (Pittsburgh specialist.)