Guardians 5, Twins 3: We've Seen This Ending Before

[Loops]

Sadly the Twins should have taken all 5 games from Cleveland. They at least had an excellent chance in all 5. Kind of worrisome for the rest of the season.

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, Aggies7 said:

This is what I’m saying. Yesterday and today are good examples. I’ll take the chance that the starter, even if he’s getting tired or going through the order a third time, can get a couple outs. And if he can’t, you could have someone warm and ready to come in. I know giving a reliever “non clean inning” isn’t perfect, but you gotta do what you gotta do. 15 outs is a lot for a bullpen to regularly get. Heck we can’t even get 6-9

We'd all like 20 year old Bert Blyleven to show up and throw 280 innings with a sub-3 ERA. But that's not happening. 

In a general sense, I think the Twins have clearly decided that since they don't have and can't afford 200+ inning starters who can get people out the 3rd time through the order, they can get close to that level of run prevention from weaker starters if they just limit the exposure of those starters. Twice through the order and start looking for a convenient spot to take him out. It's actually been fairly successful. 

However...the companion to fewer and fewer innings from starters HAS to be a stronger, deeper bullpen. There are no low leverage guys, no room for "long relief" which nobody uses any more anyway because if someone is good enough for 3 or 4 inning stretches they'd be in the rotation, and using up a pen spot on a guy who's only available every 4th or 5th day is hard to work around when you need 3 guys minimum every night. And just like shortening starts gives lesser starters a chance to keep runs down, 1 inning stints from your relievers is clearly the way to maximize their effectiveness. So that's what everyone does.

And again in general, I like that Baldelli generally takes starters out BEFORE they cough up a big inning rather than after (like Molitor was apt to do). In specifically this game, there is zero reason he should have asked for more from Archer. I'd argue he shouldn't have come out for the 4th, and wouldn't have if the pen wasn't so spent. In that  sense Baldelli actually DID get an "extra inning" from Archer.

[Riverbrian]

https://www.draysbay.com/2021/10/7/22703079/tampa-bay-rays-story-of-modern-baseball-power-starters-middle-relief-aces-collin-mchugh

1400 plus innings need to be covered in a season.

Workloads are managed. Young pitchers are not going to go from 100 innings to 200 innings from one year to the next. Pitchers coming off major injury are not going to throw 200 innings upon return. The pitchers who are left that can throw 200 effective innings? A handful and they are going to sign with the Yankees or Dodgers. 

We all know this. 

Now do the math.

You can't look at a bullpen or starters like you looked at them in the 80's. If you do... you will just continue to scream at a bus stop when the bus is long gone and not coming back.

Bullpen guys need to throw multiple innings and bad bullpen arms can't be hidden. 

 

[Whitey333]

So who's fault was it that Thornburg had to be left out there to get hammered?  Baldelli and FO. If the bullpen was used up who overused it?  Baldellis continued overuse of a bullpen, albeit very weak, is what caused this situation.  Not getting your starting pitchers stretched out by now to pitch into the 6th or 7th inning is inexcusable.  This in turn puts way too much stress on a bullpen that looks burned out already.  I've said all along and I still maintain that you cannot continually use 3-5 bullpen arms every game.  It is simply not sustainable.  Four inning Archer shows some nice stats except he pitched them in low stress innings and doesn't pitch more innings.  The starting staff has and is just average.  They are now below average because of teams inability to stretch them out.  The season is half over, they should be stretched out by now.  FO has done very little to nothing to improve the situation.  Where are they?  A couple of the pitchers on the staff could be DFAd easily.  If you don't have anyone at AAA that can help them you will need to trade.  If you wait until the trade deadline there may not be much reason left to try and improve the team this year.

[Karbo]

There are 2 problems as I see it. #1- We need to get the starters to go more than 5 innings or get other starters. Obviously yesterday pulling Archer was the right call but in general I see to many times starters getting pulled at 80 pitches. If you can get an extra few outs from the starter take them. #2- As has been well documented there is only 1 truly reliable arm (Duran) and 1 fairly reliable arm (Jax).Hey FO, you totally blew it this spring! WTH were you smoking up there? Did you really think signing Smith would fix all the bullpen? If the Twins didn't play in a weak division I don't think there would be much playoff talk IMHO. 

[jorgenswest]

12 hours ago, miller761 said:

Why can't we use Josh Winder in the bullpen? Why is he pitching meaningless innings in AAA? 

He started Tuesday. He would have been available until around Sunday. He has a few rehab innings in AAA since his return from the injury list. Rehab innings are not meaningless.

They may well use Winder in the pen but his best use this week was starting the double header game.

[Aggies7]

10 hours ago, USAFChief said:

We'd all like 20 year old Bert Blyleven to show up and throw 280 innings with a sub-3 ERA. But that's not happening. 

In a general sense, I think the Twins have clearly decided that since they don't have and can't afford 200+ inning starters who can get people out the 3rd time through the order, they can get close to that level of run prevention from weaker starters if they just limit the exposure of those starters. Twice through the order and start looking for a convenient spot to take him out. It's actually been fairly successful. 

However...the companion to fewer and fewer innings from starters HAS to be a stronger, deeper bullpen. There are no low leverage guys, no room for "long relief" which nobody uses any more anyway because if someone is good enough for 3 or 4 inning stretches they'd be in the rotation, and using up a pen spot on a guy who's only available every 4th or 5th day is hard to work around when you need 3 guys minimum every night. And just like shortening starts gives lesser starters a chance to keep runs down, 1 inning stints from your relievers is clearly the way to maximize their effectiveness. So that's what everyone does.

And again in general, I like that Baldelli generally takes starters out BEFORE they cough up a big inning rather than after (like Molitor was apt to do). In specifically this game, there is zero reason he should have asked for more from Archer. I'd argue he shouldn't have come out for the 4th, and wouldn't have if the pen wasn't so spent. In that  sense Baldelli actually DID get an "extra inning" from Archer.

The question you have to ask as far as yesterday goes, is do you trust another inning of archer less than you trust an inning of thornburg? 

[Riverbrian]

58 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

He started Tuesday. He would have been available until around Sunday. He has a few rehab innings in AAA since his return from the injury list. Rehab innings are not meaningless.

They may well use Winder in the pen but his best use this week was starting the double header game.

You have to fix the issue in the immediate short term and longer term. 

In the short term... Calling Winder back to the big club is absolutely a solution that could also help longer term. 

The searching shouldn't stop there. ? 

[Mike Sixel]

The average start in the majors has been under 6 innings for a few years now.  People screaming the starters need to average more than 5 or 6 just aren't paying attention to all of the other teams. 

[Florida Flash]

18 hours ago, farmerguychris said:

Hopefully we get some new bullpen arms before this post blows completely up so we can talk about the new guys.  Can't get them here fast enough.  Can't fairly blame Rocco as he can only put out there who the FO puts in his pen.  But, something needs to change.

 

[Florida Flash]

I dont know if some of these guys, Pagan for sure, cannot throw strikes, or are afraid to throw strikes. In either case they belong in town team ball, not pro ball. But it is hard to pitch when you have both hands around your throat.

[SwainZag]

14 hours ago, miller761 said:

Why can't we use Josh Winder in the bullpen? Why is he pitching meaningless innings in AAA? 

I've mentioned twice in this thread already....Winder went on IL a month ago and has had 3 rehab starts in AAA..2-3-4 innings.  He started 2 days ago. There's no meaningless innings going on. 

[jkcarew]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:59 AM, Mike Sixel said:

The average start in the majors has been under 6 innings for a few years now.  People screaming the starters need to average more than 5 or 6 just aren't paying attention to all of the other teams. 

The Twins are well under league average this year.  2, 3 more outs hear and there would be huge as we’ve seen. Given the bullpen investment (lack thereof) and resulting lack of depth, along with the relative success of the starting staff, it would seem smart to try to push starters a little more aggressively. Doesn’t mean it will work.

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, jkcarew said:

The Twins are well under league average this year.  2, 3 more outs hear and there would be huge as we’ve seen. Given the bullpen investment (lack thereof) and resulting lack of depth, along with the relative success of the starting staff, it would seem smart to try to push starters a little more aggressively. Doesn’t mean it will work.

Which has nothing to do with insisting good pitching staffs should average 6 or 7 innings.