Checking back in with a former standout Twins reliever

[Jack Griffin]

If I showed you this statcast page without context, what Twins pitcher would you think it is?

As well as:

-0.1 War or a 95 ERA+ (100 is league average)

Well first off it looks average or slightly below, so you could pick a name out of a hat from the Twins bullpen.

Okay, maybe you're an "old school" guy and you like more conventional metrics of success.

How about a 5.59 ERA in June or a 13.50 ERA in July?

Maybe 17 earned runs in his past 15 innings pitched?

That's Taylor Rogers.

I was told that Rodgers was an elite reliever that the stupid front office traded away!

So I'm being a little negative, that's fair to say, but I have grown so annoyed with fans trying to spin this trade like the Twins just traded away Mike Trout for a bucket of baseballs. There were many clear reasons why the Twins moved on from Rogers.

Yes to be fair a lot of those numbers aren't extremely bad, but for someone being paid 7.3 million those are underperforming numbers.

Taylor Rogers would've been traded in 2021 had it not been for his finger injury, that has been widely reported by multiple sources. I would imagine the Twins felt similar with Rogers as they did with Jose Berrios (whose trade is looking better every day) That is the thought that "We've seen the best out of this guy, and he's about to get paid by someone. That's not gonna be us."

Rogers is due to be a FA after this season and he is going to get a large contract, I'm fine with that not being the Twins because he has regressed slowly every season and there is no indication that will stop now.

So after all, looks like you can take the man out of the Twins bullpen,

But you can't take the Twins bullpen out of the man.

(Also, slight thanks to MN Sportswriter of the Year Aaron Gleeman's tweet on Rogers for inspiring this)

[Jack Griffin]

Also for some reason his statcast page populated twice. I guess I just really wanted it to stand out lol

[chpettit19]

The Paddack injury basically guarantees the trade was a negative for the 2022 MN Twins, but I still see the logic in making the deal and think it was reasonable. Rogers is better than he's been lately, but he's always been a bit of an up and down guy. I'd certainly rather have him than Pagan, but some fans do seem to act like they traded away prime Mariano.

[Squirrel]

My issue isn't with the trade, and still isn't. At that time and place, I'd probably still do it. HOWEVER, I would have also worked to find better arms for the pen. That's the issue I have. Not that the FO traded Rogers, but that they did nothing to boost the pen and relied on Duffey and Pagan. Especially knowing the starters they had. Yes, Duran has worked out, but he was a rookie, and Jax has worked out. But that's not something that I think anyone could have counted on to start the season. And even then, we were still short higher quality arms. The lack of other moves is what makes the trade so glaring and why people hammer on the 'They traded away Rogers!' song over and over. Not because people think Rogers is Mariano (I don't think anyone has made that claim, and if they do, they are wrong) but because the FO did nothing to solidify a questionable BP.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

7 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

My issue isn't with the trade, and still isn't. At that time and place, I'd probably still do it. HOWEVER, I would have also worked to find better arms for the pen. That's the issue I have. Not that the FO traded Rogers, but that they did nothing to boost the pen and relied on Duffey and Pagan. Especially knowing the starters they had. Yes, Duran has worked out, but he was a rookie, and Jax has worked out. But that's not something that I think anyone could have counted on to start the season. And even then, we were still short higher quality arms. The lack of other moves is what makes the trade so glaring and why people hammer on the 'They traded away Rogers!' song over and over. Not because people think Rogers is Mariano (I don't think anyone has made that claim, and if they do, they are wrong) but because the FO did nothing to solidify a questionable BP.

Good point Frostbite.

[big dog]

Yeah, but…hey, what a great walk rate!

I feel sorry for Rogers. I also feel sorry for us, though there is at least some hope for Paddack coming back next year. Not sure if Pagan can be fixed but maybe. 

[Jack Griffin]

1 hour ago, Squirrel said:

My issue isn't with the trade, and still isn't. At that time and place, I'd probably still do it. HOWEVER, I would have also worked to find better arms for the pen. That's the issue I have. Not that the FO traded Rogers, but that they did nothing to boost the pen and relied on Duffey and Pagan. Especially knowing the starters they had. Yes, Duran has worked out, but he was a rookie, and Jax has worked out. But that's not something that I think anyone could have counted on to start the season. And even then, we were still short higher quality arms. The lack of other moves is what makes the trade so glaring and why people hammer on the 'They traded away Rogers!' song over and over. Not because people think Rogers is Mariano (I don't think anyone has made that claim, and if they do, they are wrong) but because the FO did nothing to solidify a questionable BP.

I'd tend to agree, but those are 2 separate points that get crunched into 1 too often. A lot of fans seem to think this bullpen would be perfectly fine if they didn't make the trade, which frankly, is not true

[jorgenswest]

If the context of quality of opponent were factored in would the batted ball profile look better? Most pitchers in his role face a more difficult sample of hitters and it can skew the percentile ranks.

[USAFChief]

"We've seen the best out of this guy, and he's about to get paid by someone. That's not gonna be us."

 

Heh.

 

The Twins are paying his salary.

 

It was a stupid trade. Ridiculously stupid. 

[In My La Z boy]

1 minute ago, USAFChief said:

"We've seen the best out of this guy, and he's about to get paid by someone. That's not gonna be us."

 

Heh.

 

The Twins are paying his salary.

 

It was a stupid trade. Ridiculously stupid. 

YES!
We PAID his 2022 salary. That's always been my chief complaint with this trade, and everything Squirrel said.

[nicksaviking]

5 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

"We've seen the best out of this guy, and he's about to get paid by someone. That's not gonna be us."

 

Heh.

 

The Twins are paying his salary.

 

It was a stupid trade. Ridiculously stupid. 

If he was getting knocked around with the Twins like he currently is with the Padres, the Twins fans would have been complaining about that too.

[Squirrel]

39 minutes ago, Jack Griffin said:

I'd tend to agree, but those are 2 separate points that get crunched into 1 too often. A lot of fans seem to think this bullpen would be perfectly fine if they didn't make the trade, which frankly, is not true

Well ... I'd agree with that, too ... but then it just falls back to the FO for not doing enough to shore up the BP before the trade and then made it even worse

[ashbury]

Rogers was potentially the right chip to trade.  Impending free agency and the finger injury were two good reasons, IMO. The charts in this post buttress the opinion.

The salary sent to the Padres wasn't relevant that close to opening day.  Pagan is just noise in the system.

Paddack was the wrong target for acquisition, due to the injury dossier.  That's the biggest issue for me.

Assuming Rogers would be easily replaced was something I was willing to trust the FO's judgment, but that was an error too.  It made the choice to trade him indefensible after all.  But there were other replacement options they could have chosen instead.

[tony&rodney]

34 minutes ago, In My La Z boy said:

YES!
We PAID his 2022 salary. That's always been my chief complaint with this trade, and everything Squirrel said.

Which means that the Twins have Pagan this year for $11 million. The trade was poor and was made much worse by not adding anyone to fill holes that already existed before the deal with San Diego, as others already mentioned.

[Trov]

Rodgers is like any "closer" which he was not for us really, but they will get the job done a decent amount of the time, but will blow some here and there.  His recent run of games is not good, but the team only has lost 5 games he has pitched in, 4 of which he picked up the loss, and won 31 he pitched in, where he got 24 saves.  He has blow 5 saves.  

He is a good relief arm but some act like he was untouchable and with him we would have won like 10 more games or something, which is just not the case.  For all we know all the blown saves we have had he would have, or he would have blown some others did not.  He is overvalued by many in my opinion.  

Lets see how he does in the playoffs for SD, where his career numbers are 3.1 innings pitched across 4 games, one outing he got no outs, given up 2 runs.  Maybe he closes out games and pushes SD to second round, or maybe he blows a save and SD curses him. 

[chpettit19]

53 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

If the context of quality of opponent were factored in would the batted ball profile look better? Most pitchers in his role face a more difficult sample of hitters and it can skew the percentile ranks.

I don't think that's true. Rogers is being used as a strict closer. They are using him for the 9th inning only for the most part. There's no reason to think the hitters in the 9th inning are going to be a more difficult sample of hitters. That thought process works for someone like Duran who the Twins use against the heart of the order as often as possible without concern for it only being in the 9th. Rogers just gets whoever comes up in the 9th. Taylor has only appeared before the 9th inning 4 times this year. All 8th inning appearances as they tried to get more than an inning out of him. Blew 2 saves and got 2 1.1 inning saves in those appearances.

PAs by batting order position for Rogers this year:
1st- 12
2nd- 14
3rd- 17
4th- 18
5th- 16
6th- 15
7th- 19
8th- 19
9th- 16

So he's faced the 7 and 8 hitters in the lineup more than he's faced any other spot in the lineup. 1 and 2 hitters the least. Although, to your point, the 1-2 hitters in those 26 PAs have an OPS of 1.283 against him. But that doesn't help his case as a big time reliever when he can't get the top of the order out.

[nicksaviking]

Just about every contender in the league has a bullpen made up of home-grown young arms, with a low-priced journeyman vet or two and the rest being DFA cast-offs who bounce around clubs like a drunk frat boy.

I mean the Twins could have (maybe should have) signed some big time reliever in the offseason, but most of the good teams are not doing that. They're using their money in other places and crafting a unique bullpen out of a random collection of guys who couldn't cut it in the rotation. 

The only difference between the Twins and the Rays/Red Sox/Blue Jays/Yankees is that the Twins clearly don't have the knack for getting the best out of these kinds of pitchers. I mean the Rays basically just have a recycled Twins bullpen this year. The Twins don't have to sign big ticket bullpen arms, they just have to be better, much better, at doing this kind of yeomen's work. 

I don't give Terry Ryan credit for much these days, but this was one trick he was really good at. 

[chpettit19]

21 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Just about every contender in the league has a bullpen made up of home-grown young arms, with a low-priced journeyman vet or two and the rest being DFA cast-offs who bounce around clubs like a drunk frat boy.

I mean the Twins could have (maybe should have) signed some big time reliever in the offseason, but most of the good teams are not doing that. They're using their money in other places and crafting a unique bullpen out of a random collection of guys who couldn't cut it in the rotation. 

The only difference between the Twins and the Rays/Red Sox/Blue Jays/Yankees is that the Twins clearly don't have the knack for getting the best out of these kinds of pitchers. I mean the Rays basically just have a recycled Twins bullpen this year. The Twins don't have to sign big ticket bullpen arms, they just have to be better, much better, at doing this kind of yeomen's work. 

I don't give Terry Ryan credit for much these days, but this was one trick he was really good at. 

Baltimore is clawing their way into wild card contention largely on the strength of their bullpen. They've thrown 355 innings (Twins at 352.1 for reference), and have the 5th best pen ERA. Not sure anyone on here was really clamoring for Keegan Akin, Jorge Lopez, and Dillon Tate this offseason...

Actually, the Twins have a Dillon Tate, his name is Jharel Cotton. Former big time starting pitcher prospect who couldn't get it done in the rotation so moved to the pen. The Orioles have just done better at getting Tate to perform.

[Battle ur tail off]

1 hour ago, Jack Griffin said:

I'd tend to agree, but those are 2 separate points that get crunched into 1 too often. A lot of fans seem to think this bullpen would be perfectly fine if they didn't make the trade, which frankly, is not true

Agree but, 3-4 more wins would be nice wouldn't it. 

 

[Battle ur tail off]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

"We've seen the best out of this guy, and he's about to get paid by someone. That's not gonna be us."

 

Heh.

 

The Twins are paying his salary.

 

It was a stupid trade. Ridiculously stupid. 

It was decent in theory, one year of a nice reliever for a starter that is young and controllable and another reliever that throws mid 90s, but when we find out the starter they traded for was broken and basically a #5-6-7 type starter, then it looks worse. Also, Pagan is a negative to this team IMO. 

 

[jun]

Perhaps it's time to trade Pagan for Rogers now.

[lukeduke1980]

Rogers showed in previous years to be ineffective on back to back days.  So in a year where you're adding Correa why not live with Rogers as bullpen guy 1B in a walk year.  Duran and Rogers.  FO was right on Duran, so kudos for that. 

[nicksaviking]

One thing that strikes me as a bit wierd with the bullpen saga, is that since the season started, the Twins haven't been desperately grabbing guys off the DFA heap. There have been LOTS of guys on the DFA heap this year, but Thornburg was the single reliever they signed.

For one reason or another, they seem to like their DFA bait better than what's available, and that hasn't been the case in past years.

[Jack Griffin]

20 hours ago, USAFChief said:

"We've seen the best out of this guy, and he's about to get paid by someone. That's not gonna be us."

 

Heh.

 

The Twins are paying his salary.

 

It was a stupid trade. Ridiculously stupid. 

Paid in free agency, not just his base salary for his last year of arb

[Jack Griffin]

20 hours ago, In My La Z boy said:

YES!
We PAID his 2022 salary. That's always been my chief complaint with this trade, and everything Squirrel said.

They are paying for his last year of arbitration to get a more controllable return, that's your chief complaint?

[Jack Griffin]

19 hours ago, jun said:

Perhaps it's time to trade Pagan for Rogers now.

They have worth roughly the same since May.

[Jack Griffin]

17 hours ago, lukeduke1980 said:

Rogers showed in previous years to be ineffective on back to back days.  So in a year where you're adding Correa why not live with Rogers as bullpen guy 1B in a walk year.  Duran and Rogers.  FO was right on Duran, so kudos for that. 

The best way to describe this trade is: In THEORY it works. Paddack, who's has multiple years of control left, pitches well and bolsters the tail end of the rotation that was weak before. Pagan regains his form and is just as good as Rogers would have been, but the Twins free up future money to sign other players. 

But obviously that didn't work out, Paddack is hurt and Pagan has.... well, been Pagan.

[USAFChief]

56 minutes ago, Jack Griffin said:

The best way to describe this trade is: In THEORY it works. Paddack, who's has multiple years of control left, pitches well and bolsters the tail end of the rotation that was weak before. Pagan regains his form and is just as good as Rogers would have been, but the Twins free up future money to sign other players. 

But obviously that didn't work out, Paddack is hurt and Pagan has.... well, been Pagan.

Explain to me how the Twins "free up future money to sign other players."

 

They didn't free up any money. Rogers wasn't signed past this year. If they did ANYTHING money wise, they limited their options now since they operate on a budget and theyre currently paying Paddack, Pagan, AND Rogers.

In fact, they'll spend 2023 money on Paddack without having any idea if he'll pitch well, or at all. Keeping Pagan will cost as well, if they so choose. If they keep Rogers they're not obligated to pay ANY of those three in 2023.

This simply wasn't a trade a team serious about contending makes. Ill conceived. You can't take the best piece out of your bullpen. 

"Saving money" not only didn't happen, it actually cost them money. 

[ashbury]

18 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

One thing that strikes me as a bit wierd with the bullpen saga, is that since the season started, the Twins haven't been desperately grabbing guys off the DFA heap. There have been LOTS of guys on the DFA heap this year, but Thornburg was the single reliever they signed.

For one reason or another, they seem to like their DFA bait better than what's available, and that hasn't been the case in past years.

But the converse also would be true.  Little of our DFA fodder seems to interest even one of the other 29 teams.

It may mean that the analytically inclined front offices have decided to call a truce on the theory that beggar-thy-neighbor only works when you set your sights higher than mere pennies.

[tony&rodney]

One way to get closure on this trade with San Diego is to just DFA Paddack and Pagan in November; start over and try again.