Is the Twins Rotation for Real?

[Ted Schwerzler]

Entering play on Wednesday, May 4, the Minnesota Twins owned the ninth-best starting rotation in terms of fWAR, and the fourth-best group in terms of ERA. For a unit that was expected to need the most help this offseason, it’s been a great development. Now the question becomes how sustainable is this?

Rather than opting for an ace on the free-agent market like Carlos Rodon or Kevin Gausman, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine swung a deal for Sonny Gray. They flipped relief pitching for Chris Paddack. They came to terms on a low-risk offer for Dylan Bundy. They trusted both Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober. Now a month in, it’s hard to suggest they were anything but right.

That said, there’s no denying that pitchers have had the upper hand thus far. When pitching in cooler temperatures the ball travels shorter distances and hitters are less comfortable. Those things will both change as the game-time temperatures warm up, so some level of regression is to be expected. How can each be evaluated individually thus far, though?

Joe Ryan 5 G 27.2 IP 1.63 ERA 3.08 FIP 9.1 K/9 2.3 BB/9
The Twins Opening Day starter has done nothing to suggest he wasn’t deserving of that nod. He’s been all but dominant in each of his four turns, and despite a FIP that suggests some regression may come, he’s still pitching well above what you’d expect from a lower-velocity fastball.

Ryan’s expected ERA is 2.94 which is a slight step backward, but still a dazzling number. Although he’s giving up slightly more hard-hit contact, he’s halved the barrel rate opponents are putting up against him from last season. He’s actually dialed back the fastball usage about 15% and poured it into his slider, a pitch Minnesota's coaches love. He’s throwing about one mph harder this season, and he’s upped the whiff rate to 12.7%. Ryan is giving up even less contact than last season, and although batters are chasing a bit less often, they just haven’t been able to figure him out.

There’s little opportunity for Ryan not to go down as the greatest trade return in Twins history. Flipping two months of an aging veteran for a guy profiling as a staff ace is incredible. Statcast seems to agree, and no level of regression should knock him out of being a significant contributor.

Sonny Gray 2 G 6.1 IP 5.68 ERA 7.03 FIP 7.1 K/9 4.3 BB/9
It’s pretty impossible to draw conclusions on Gray from two short starts and then a stint on the Injured List. If anything, it’s heartwarming to feel like a better version will return for Minnesota. Gray’s velocity was down in the time he has spent on the mound, but again he pitched in cold and through injury.

There’s not much reason to spend time here breaking down what was. The Twins traded for Gray because getting him out of Cincinnati should mean better production in a more friendly ballpark. This is all still to be determined.

Bailey Ober 4 G 19.2 IP 2.75 ERA 3.54 FIP 7.3 K/9 2.3 BB/9
Of the two Twins holdovers, it may have been Ober that was more questionable despite the longer track record. He had less prospect pedigree and made it work to the tune of a 4.19 ERA last season. In year two, he’s been more stingy with the home runs, although walks are up and strikeouts are down. That said, he’s still showing plenty of reason to believe in the FIP category and it’s because of deception.

Ober has a fastball that plays up because of his stature. Being so tall means the 92 mph pitch gets on batters quicker. He’s limited hard-hit contact, and while his stuff isn’t overpowering, the 37.7% chase rate means batters are playing into his pitches. Allowing Ober to expand the zone gives him more ways to beat you, and he’s been successful doing that thus far. Like Ryan, Minnesota has taken a chunk of fastball usage and put it into Ober’s slider. The results have been positive so far, and it makes for a guy whose floor continues to rise.

Dylan Bundy 4 G 21.1 IP 2.95 ERA 2.94 FIP 8.0 K/9 1.3 BB/9
A guy that finished in the top 10 for Cy Young voting just two seasons ago shouldn’t be considered a breakthrough, but Bundy looked lost last year with the Angels. Now he’s still striking guys out, not giving up walks, and being tight with the longball.

Bundy’s velocity is about the only thing on his Statcast profile that doesn’t scream amazing. He’s avoiding the barrel, confusing batters, generating soft contact, and everything about the results suggests sustainability. The 89.7 mph average fastball velocity is a career-low, but he’s only using the pitch 38.9% of the time. The splitter/slider combination is serving him well and everything else aligns with career norms.

Minnesota didn’t have Bundy reinvent the wheel, but sequencing and pitchability have led him to a place where contact has avoided an opportunity for damage. The Twins have a strong infield defense and generating ground balls 48% of the time is only going to help turn batted balls into outs.

Chris Paddack 4 G 20.0 IP 3.15 ERA 1.93 FIP 7.2 K/9 0.9 BB/9
Swinging a deal for Paddack, the Twins sought to find the guy who posted a 3.33 ERA for the Padres as a rookie. A few tweaks in and they may have unlocked something. Rather than having him pitch in the middle of the zone, Minnesota has elevated his target on fastballs and the results have been encouraging.

Despite pitching in cold weather to start the season for the first time, Paddack has only seen a minor dip in velocity. The Twins have also pushed their new arm to utilize a slider and his curveball more, which has taken focus away from an exceptional changeup. He’s been among the best in baseball when it comes to limiting walks, and keeping runners off the basepaths has allowed him to avoid significant damage.

Paddack’s numbers are good as they are, and they’d be even better if not for bad 1st innings in each of his first two starts. Getting this type of pitcher under team control in exchange for a reliever was always going to be a win, but Minnesota’s changes could bear significant fruit for both parties.

There’s a lot of good news across this rotation. That’s not to say steps backward won’t happen, because the level they are currently competing at is truly extraordinary. That being said, it’s not as though the numbers are backed by truth, and even a bit of evening out looks to stay within a good place. When everyone was clamoring for the big names, Minnesota’s front office instead trusted the process to show big improvements derived from their internal belief.

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[Seansy]

My two favorite targets, Gausman and Rodón, have been incredible and would of been great additions but a lot of other big money free agents like Stroman and Semien have struggled so far this year. My reasoning for those two was that they didn't have a QO attached and I felt more confident they could replicate their results than Ray. Given how well the rotation has pitched so far and the addition of Correa it is hard to fault the result. If Bundy pitches well all season they have an option for him plus 1 more year of control for Gray. Archer is likely gone at season's end but I'm guessing they fill his spot long term with Winder. After next year Bundy and Gray should be replaced with some combination of Balazovic, Canterino, Sands, Henriquez, etc. depending on their performance in the minors.

The pitching pipeline is finally starting to bear fruit!

[2wins87]

I wasn't sure what Wes Johnson & co. could do in such a short time for a guy coming over literally on opening day.  That fastball heatmap for Paddack though...

I'm sure the Padres didn't want him throwing it down the middle, and they must have been aware, right?  I'm sure there's a difference between saying "Hey, don't throw your fastball down the middle!" and saying "Here's what we're going to do mechanically or mentally or whatever to keep your fastball up and out of the middle of the zone..." and I guess that's why Wes Johnson is so well regarded.

Still kind of wild though.

[Brandon]

The Joe Ryan trade will never beat out the Johan Santana trade.  How could a rule 5 draft pick for a 2 time Cy Young award winner get beat?  THe Joe Ryan trade is still a top 5 or 3 or possibly 2.  

[RJA]

It certainly has been a terrific start for the rotation, about which I must admit I had severe doubts.   The Athletic has a great article about how well the members of this rotation have bonded, enjoying each other's company and helping each other out.  Seth had a great article about winning and chemistry, and I think the chemistry of this group will help all of them be better.  It is still early, however, and the hitting around the league is slow to come around.  Let's just hope we are still seeing positive numbers in mid summer. We are going to have a fun year if they stay on course.

 

[Drew]

5 minutes ago, Brandon said:

The Joe Ryan trade will never beat out the Johan Santana trade.  How could a rule 5 draft pick for a 2 time Cy Young award winner get beat?  THe Joe Ryan trade is still a top 5 or 3 or possibly 2.  

You say this on Jared Camp's birthday?? How rude! I'd also include the AJ trade that netted us Boof Bonser and those other 2 guys.

[GKuehl]

I know he only has 1 start (plus coming in for Sonny when he got hurt and pitching 5.1 innings), but we’ve gotta give Winder some love too! He’s been nothing short of stellar, particularly when you consider he’s a starter who’s had to change his routine by coming out of the bullpen for all but one of his appearances. 

[Brandon]

9 minutes ago, Drew said:

You say this on Jared Camp's birthday?? How rude! I'd also include the AJ trade that netted us Boof Bonser and those other 2 guys.

Lets see we got a multi all star closer, an all star starting pitcher and the one of the best Nick Names ever for AJ (Boof).  not bad.  not bad at all.  

[Dman]

OK I had my doubts especially after the FO's trust last year in Happ and Shoemaker.  Bundy seemed like more of the same to me.  Archer seemed done three years ago. What are the odds he would be useful this year.  Ober and Ryan seemed like they could hold down spots but what if they regressed?  Sonny Gray was a good get but would he be able to pitch a whole season? Paddack had been struggling since 2019 with a partial tear in his arm.  Put that all together and it didn't scream elite yet alone top 10 rotation to me.  So yeah, sorry, I had my doubts.

There still is a lot of season left and arms get tired so this won't last forever.  Pitchers have the greatest advantage when they are fresh and strong.  Keeping it going through the season will be a whole other test. Still I have to say I am incredibly surprised by how well they are doing so far this year.  If they can keep this up this team will be in great shape to take the division.

[bighat]

I think Paddack and Ryan are going to continue and emerge as a true 1-2 punch.

I see Gray as an effective, yet injury-prone arm that might contribute somewhat but we probably shouldn't count on too much. Ober's injury really knocked him down on my list as well, he was looking solid prior but I think he may have already reached his ceiling in terms of what he can give the Twins.

I see Winder as a wildcard, certainly could play a big role this year if either of the two aforementioned get injured, or....when Bundy and Archer hit the wall, which I anticipate will be around mid-June. In fact I think that it's possible that one of those two might not even be with the team come July 15.

[blindeke]

That said, Rodon is looking really good.

[stringer bell]

Bundy is a key to this in the first half of the season IMHO. He’s pitched great, but the lack of velocity makes his margin for error really small. I don’t know how he will hold up over a full season, but I was impressed by his adjustments after getting ambushed by Tampa Bay. 

[blindeke]

1 hour ago, Brandon said:

The Joe Ryan trade will never beat out the Johan Santana trade.  How could a rule 5 draft pick for a 2 time Cy Young award winner get beat?  THe Joe Ryan trade is still a top 5 or 3 or possibly 2.  

Not to be pedantic, but that was not a trade.

[Drew]

2 minutes ago, blindeke said:

Not to be pedantic, but that was not a trade.

Jared Camp for Johan Santana 12/13/99. The Marlins drafted Santana in the Rule V draft and immediately traded him to the Twins for Jared Camp. 

[4twinsJA]

I think there is some degree of luck when it comes to acquiring experienced pitchers hoping for a rebound. Last year it did not work out, this year-so far, has been good. I look at Bundy and Archer as short term help, I mean 2-3 month place holders until Winder, Paddack and/or someone else is ready. If Twins get a full year of effective pitching from either Bundy or Archer is somewhat unexpected. Looks like rotation could be Gray, Ryan, Ober, Paddack, and Winder, but still need 1-2 possibly 3 more SPs to handle injuries. Should be plenty of innings for all 7 of these SPs over the year.

[RpR]

Luck has zip to with it, they look at performance and stats. and make a decision from that knowing full well that odds may , or may not, be against them; whether the athlete can perform at a Major League level, is up to the althlete.

[Dbohnk]

Any reason why Archer isn't mentioned in the article?  

[4twinsJA]

Luck may not be the correct word to use. Yes, teams use all sorts of analytics, injury history, age of pitcher to help predict future success. But even with that, maybe a pitcher is deemed twice as likely to succeed than fail, that just means of 3 pitchers that fit that profile 2 will succeed and 1 will fail, will a team be have enough luck to pick  one of the 2 that will succeed or be unlucky and pick the one that fails. That is an over simplification of the process, but my point is that there is no way to be 100% accurate, best hope is to put the odds in your favor, always a chance of being unlucky.

[Doctor Gast]

Archer should have been mentioned in this article. His positive influence on this young staff is invaluable. Besides he has given us 4 quality starts with the opportunity to win all of them. He has pitched many more innings than Gray so far and Archer's will eventually will be stretched where he can pitch 5+ innings. Once he's 100% there isn't a pitcher on the Twins roster that I'd trust more to pitch in an important game than Archer.

I believed this rotation was for real once ST was over. Their overall success will be based on how well Baldelli will manage them. If he over depends on the short relief and burns them out which in turn burns out the rotation, I don't see things ending well. I don't see any work horses yet in our rotation. I don't see Bundy maintaining to pitch 5+ innings through out the season. Right now I have doubts about Gray's condition. Ryan, Ober and Paddack aren't used to pitching a lot of innings. Archer has pitched many seasons of around 200 innings pitched per season but not pitching much the last 2 1/2 seasons.

I believe the main reason that we haven't won a post season is that our rotation is shot come around post season time. I will continue to clamor the solution to this problem is to establish our long relief. Not only that it helps take the pressure off of short relief and the SPs, it also helps get our prospects feet wet, Winder is an excellent example of this, the reason he had such a great debut was that he was ready via long relief.

We have great depth at SPing. Besides our main 6, we also have Winder and Smeltzer that are ready with Balazovic, SWR and Canterino that could be called up to pitch long relief and be SPs if need be.

[2wins87]

2 hours ago, Drew said:

Jared Camp for Johan Santana 12/13/99. The Marlins drafted Santana in the Rule V draft and immediately traded him to the Twins for Jared Camp. 

While technically a trade, it was really just a rule-5 pick in spirit.  I don't remember the specifics of why they did it that way, but the Twins wanted Santana and the Marlins wanted Camp.  Terry Ryan just decided to get weird with it.

[2wins87]

3 hours ago, Drew said:

You say this on Jared Camp's birthday?? How rude! I'd also include the AJ trade that netted us Boof Bonser and those other 2 guys.

The AJ trade tree is pretty great too, including Eduardo Escobar and Jhoan Duran.

Maybe the Cruz trade gets there some day but its not there yet.

[mikelink45]

As the old guy that questions a lot of quick judgments, I need to get to at least June before giving the rotation a grade. 

[Don't Feed the Greed Guy]

Both Winder and Archer at least deserved honorable mention cred.

[se7799]

4 hours ago, Dman said:

OK I had my doubts especially after the FO's trust last year in Happ and Shoemaker.  Bundy seemed like more of the same to me.  Archer seemed done three years ago. What are the odds he would be useful this year.  Ober and Ryan seemed like they could hold down spots but what if they regressed?  Sonny Gray was a good get but would he be able to pitch a whole season? Paddack had been struggling since 2019 with a partial tear in his arm.  Put that all together and it didn't scream elite yet alone top 10 rotation to me.  So yeah, sorry, I had my doubts.

There still is a lot of season left and arms get tired so this won't last forever.  Pitchers have the greatest advantage when they are fresh and strong.  Keeping it going through the season will be a whole other test. Still I have to say I am incredibly surprised by how well they are doing so far this year.  If they can keep this up this team will be in great shape to take the division.

Ok, let me ask you this. Do you expect us to remain a top ten rotation?  What would it take for you to become a believer and not just thinking it's based more on the arms just being fresh and early of the season?  I truly am curious of what sounds like pessimism.  What would you personally need to see to become optimistic that we have a top ten strong deep rotation?

[se7799]

I have to ask the multitudes, why such pessimistic takes?  What is it that we need?  I just feel as if many are "blaming cold" weather or expect the starters to fall flat at some point...if not soon.  I'm sure it's just guarded optimism?  However I do not see this start as a fluke.  I honestly believe this is the best rotation we have had in multiple years...with ample depth.  I'm sure all will become believers soon enough.

[twinssporto]

Yes. For real. 

Totally sure it's real. 

[mikelink45]

Tonight demonstrated why I am not willing to buy into the "this rotation is better than we thought" postings.  Let's see them show it for another 6 weeks.  You can judge batters much quicker than pitchers. 

[PatPfund]

I think the rotation is going to hold up pretty well not (just) because of the names mentioned, but because there is far more depth than in the past. Winder looks like a real starter in search of a slot (which he has now, and might not give up easily). Archer isn't mentioned here, and has better stuff than some who are. It isn't piling on after tonight's outing, but I do think Bundy is the most likely to not last; the game is slowing down for the hitters, and 89 mph fastballs get real marginal real quick. (You can find me elsewhere on the site in late April worrying Bundy might be like Geoff Zahn.)

But even if he doesn't last as a starter, there are good-to-decent arms ready to step in and pitch now, or very soon. (Winder, Gray, Smeltzer)

[Eephus]

7 minutes ago, PatPfund said:

I think the rotation is going to hold up pretty well not (just) because of the names mentioned, but because there is far more depth than in the past. Winder looks like a real starter in search of a slot (which he has now, and might not give up easily). Archer isn't mentioned here, and has better stuff than some who are. It isn't piling on after tonight's outing, but I do think Bundy is the most likely to not last; the game is slowing down for the hitters, and 89 mph fastballs get real marginal real quick. (You can find me elsewhere on the site in late April worrying Bundy might be like Geoff Zahn.)

But even if he doesn't last as a starter, there are good-to-decent arms ready to step in and pitch now, or very soon. (Winder, Gray, Smeltzer)

I'm with you and I said a while ago that Bundy reminded me of the Phil Hughes toward the end.

[h2oface]

Today is the Bundy I expected, and against the Orioles. Perez flashback. It was comical all the "a good loss" comments after last weeks bombing in the first 3 innings. I hope they don't let him lose too many games and have a quick gong. Leaving him in for the 4th after giving up 6 in the third, and the Twins made a game of his debacle by scoring 4 in the top of the inning,...... was horrible managing. I hate to see a manager throw games away no matter what time of the season it is.

Other than Ryan (and I have hopes for Gray), I really expect this to be a wonderful start, and a developing problem, especially if the playoffs happen, and the low inning pitchers will have already pitched way more innings than ever before by the end of the season. I wish for the best, but am prepared for the worst. Still not a good plan if you what to get to the playoffs.... and compete!