The Weirdest Move Minnesota Could Make

[DocBauer]

I was not aware of a new pitch. I have been aware of much better numbers as of late. And Ted makes an interesting point in the OP. But it's one I just can't buy in to. A 3 year history of poor performance and a preponderance of hanging/grooving at least one pitch each appearance, I'm just not willing to buy in after 16 IP. We have other, younger, less expensive arms with promise to be auditioning and using in middle relief.

We also have to take a 52 man player roster down to about 30 in order to sign at least a couple quality FA and protect 4-6 young players eligible for rule 5. Do we really want Pagan taking up one of those spots??? It gets a lot harder once you get past those first dozen or so that are pretty obvious. I think it's time for everyone to move on.

 

[jorgenswest]

He also had a new pitch in the spring with San Diego. His splitter may have been OK early on but was a negative value pitch overall. It doesn’t take hitters long to catch up with a new pitch. He is 32. He doesn’t have options which are a value to a back of the bullpen pitcher that might shuttle back and forth. The only reason to pay him is you believe he is one of the relievers to count on in the final third of the game. Is he that pitcher?

I think I had the first comment on Seth’s article about the trade. My reaction then “Why would they want two years of control of Emilio Pagán?” I am still wondering.

[Game7-91]

I could accept another year of Pagan if it meant free Heiniken, all you could eat brats, and $1 lower level seating at TF. And reruns of Cheers on their new big screen scoreboard after the 5th inning of every game. 

[Riverbrian]

Whatever data is making the front office believe in him has been trumped by his actual performance which makes most of us not believe. 

If they are bringing Pagan back... they better right.  Those roster spots are gold and should be treated as such.

You can't hide anyone in the bullpen in consideration of how many innings the starters are throwing.  

If they think they can fix him... he better get fixed. 

I need them completely bullpen serious. 

[rwilfong86]

DFA and move on. 

[Whitey333]

Keeping Pagan is foolish.  They should have DFA him by the middle of the season.  Keep sending him out there in key situations on many occasions just to watch him lose another game was a disaster. They keep talking about his stuff.  He has good stuff, good spin rates, good missed bats, etc.  What good is all that garbage if you can't get anyone out?  The major league team is the last step on the baseball ladder.  If you can't make it here you don't belong.  Pagan epitomizes what is wrong with this team and management.  Get rid of him.

[AceWrigley]

If Tyler Duffy wasn't good enough for this team, then Emilio Pagan shouldn't be either.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

11 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

For some reason, we never seem to look at the psychological aspects of player performance. They're very hard to pinpoint or quantify, I know, and they don't make for good analytics. But the issue with Pagan sure seems to be the yips.

Did he perform better after the new breaking ball, or because he was relegated to low-leverage situations by the time he showed improvement? I am no expert, but when Pagan was getting shelled, it wasn't so much his pitch selection as location. He would serve up extra-base hits right down the heart of the plate. No MLB relief pitcher does that unless they're mentally distracted or rattled. 

In fact, I think the Twins as a team have the yips, and have had them for a few years. They seem to do okay in no-pressure situations. But in high-pressure situations, we seem to see a lot of bad a bats, a lot of bad pitch location and a lot of errors in the field. When the Twins play the Astros, Yankees or Dodgers, they play like they're afraid.

This is a layman's take and could be ridiculous. But bringing back Pagan to ruin games for this club again in 2023 - unless rebuilding, or unless there's some clear strengthening of the mental aspect of his game - seems even more ridiculous.

Very good point. How does a team rid itself of the Yips. 1) Sign Correa 2) sign two Ace pitchers 3) sign a catcher who is a vocal leader 4) sign a manager who will turn over the clubhouse buffet table after a loss. When there is a loss..."No soup for you."

[ashbury]

Salary via arbitration being held down somewhat, due to subpar numbers?   Difficult to pass up a bargain like that!

[ashbury]

3 hours ago, AceWrigley said:

If Tyler Duffy wasn't good enough for this team, then Emilio Pagan shouldn't be either.

Very different pitchers.  Duffey doesn't have enough stuff anymore to succeed.  Pagan misses his spots too often.  It could be true that being rid of them both is the right thing to do, but they are hardly joined at the hip, even if their 2022 stats are both unacceptable.  One cause of the stats may be more correctable than the other.

[bighat]

Like most here, I think keeping Pagan is ridiculous.

Take even the worst MLB hitters and pitchers, you can cherry pick some random stats to make them look good. Case in point, TD even found a way to reference a career .193 hitting backstop as one of the best in the game.

Maybe Pagan did develop a new pitch. Good for him, let him use it somewhere else. Maybe he'll even be successful - and if that happens, it's not a loss for the Twins. We have to stop fearing that Twins players will succeed elsewhere. If they do, that's OK!

Getting rid of Pagan sends a message: you play poorly and you're out. Letting this guy step foot in the Target Field locker room again would be a disaster for Twins players and fans alike.

Don't forget that this guy was one of the main contributors to sinking the season. Look at names to blame for the 2nd half dumpster fire and he's right at the top of the list. Get 'em out.

[rv78]

Duffey couldn't get batters out and was in the last year of his contract at a cost of 3.8M. Pagan has the exact same problem but has another year of eligibility and was at 2.3M. It appears to me that the FO values "control" of a player so much, especially if he is cheaper than someone else, that they will not DFA them no matter how bad they play or hurt the team unless they are going to lose that player anyway like Duffey. It's almost as if they are thinking: I own you so you will stay here no matter how bad you are. I'd rather the team suffer from your ineptness cause if I Cut you it'll look like I made a mistake and I can't have that. What they don't get is that the fans already know they made a mistake and by keeping said player around they are only making themselves look even more foolish.

[CRF]

Decent stuff, decent velo...zero command. Barely serviceable in a mop up role. Anything else is a disaster. Much better options will be available. Find another sucker and ship him over to them. 

[TopGunn#22]

This is why I come to TD.  An interesting and controversial topic with many interesting takes.  For me, this kind of comes down on how healthy our young pitching pipeline is.  And for the last couple years it hasn't been.  If we have widespread injury problems with pitchers again, Pagan is at least durable.  The new pitch is nice.  it's ALWAYS nice when a pitcher can toy with a "new pitch."  But like someone else pointed out, if you can throw 100 mph like Megill but don't have any consistent command, what good is that?

If the young pitching pipeline has a spring/summer/fall of health, some of them will certainly be a better option than Pagan.  If arbitration WORKED, Pagan would be getting a pay cut.  He was epically BAD.  To me, as a sales manager, that doesn't warrant a RAISE.  But I know attaching real world common sense to "sports world" salaries is childish, so I won't go there (even though I just did).  

[Nine of twelve]

The situation with Pagan makes me think of Ryan Pressly. Pressly was underperforming in Minnesota despite having high-level talent. He was traded to Houston and immediately became a major force in the late innings for them, often closing. I don't know if the Twins were mis-coaching him or if he wasn't amenable to coaching or if it was just bad luck, but obviously something clicked for him in Houston that didn't click here. I'm not saying Pagan has Pressly's talent, but my question is whether Pagan's apparent underperformance can be turned around. If we keep Pagan it's critical for our next pitching coach to get the most out of him.

[LastOnePicked]

12 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

4) sign a manager who will turn over the clubhouse buffet table after a loss. When there is a loss..."No soup for you."

Yup, that's the spirit.

OR ... I think Parker H. posted a year or so ago about high-stress, high-leverage situation performance drills that some teams were making a part of conditioning and training. Basically, coaches run through mock do-or-die skills scenarios and then check to see if the players seem mentally ready to handle these situations when they would arise in an actual game. Not sure if the Twins are doing these, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea. At the very least to run these in Spring Training, and in St. Paul.

[tony&rodney]

21 minutes ago, Nine of twelve said:

my question is whether Pagan's apparent underperformance can be turned around.

Seattle, Oakland, Tampa Bay, San Diego, and Minnesota - all of these teams seemingly could not unleash the beast within Emilio. It is time to give another squad an opportunity.

[jorgenswest]

2 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

The situation with Pagan makes me think of Ryan Pressly. Pressly was underperforming in Minnesota despite having high-level talent. He was traded to Houston and immediately became a major force in the late innings for them, often closing. I don't know if the Twins were mis-coaching him or if he wasn't amenable to coaching or if it was just bad luck, but obviously something clicked for him in Houston that didn't click here. I'm not saying Pagan has Pressly's talent, but my question is whether Pagan's apparent underperformance can be turned around. If we keep Pagan it's critical for our next pitching coach to get the most out of him.

I don’t see it. Pressly was a rule 5 pick that the Twins helped develop into a good reliever. His xFIP and FIP were both below 3 when he was traded. He took the next step with Houston in his prime. Pagán is with his 5th team since 2017. He is at an age where decline is coming soon. Command is a skill and it just may not be there for Pagán. Even in his one stand out year his numbers were fueled by an unsustainable 94.8% LOB rate. The Rays must have seen the true talent and sold high.

Through May this year he had a similarly unsustainable LOB rate. This is not a skill and he came crashing down in June with his poor command that led to hard contact.  The 2022 hard contact rate that was virtually the same as 2021. Why would we expect that to change in 2023? Maybe it isn’t underperformance. 

[Doctor Gast]

On 10/7/2022 at 11:13 AM, DJL44 said:

But they have already said they aren't changing anything about how he'll be managed in 2023.

This is the biggest fault of management. Doubling down & holding onto wrong evaluations. It's one thing to make a wrong evaluation (which it seems too often) because no one is perfect but it another thing not able to make quick adjustments to those wrong evaluations and it's another thing to let go of a right evaluation too soon.

[The Mad King]

I always thought the trade was made with very strong input from Tingler because he managed them both. And that Pagan want going anywhere because they had another year of team control. New pitch or not, the improvement in stats could also be due to the change in roles, from high leverage to mop up. Year to year - relief pitchers have to be the least predictable players on all of sports. Sample size is just too low and circumstances change all the time. 

[Nine of twelve]

19 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

I don’t see it. Pressly was a rule 5 pick that the Twins helped develop into a good reliever. His xFIP and FIP were both below 3 when he was traded. He took the next step with Houston in his prime. Pagán is with his 5th team since 2017. He is at an age where decline is coming soon. Command is a skill and it just may not be there for Pagán. Even in his one stand out year his numbers were fueled by an unsustainable 94.8% LOB rate. The Rays must have seen the true talent and sold high.

Through May this year he had a similarly unsustainable LOB rate. This is not a skill and he came crashing down in June with his poor command that led to hard contact.  The 2022 hard contact rate that was virtually the same as 2021. Why would we expect that to change in 2023? Maybe it isn’t underperformance. 

As I said, I don't think Pagan is the pitcher Pressly was or is. Nor did I say that I thought the Twins should keep Pagan. The similarity is that, based on his pitches, Pagan should be getting better results than what we have seen. I don't think anyone expects Pagan to suddenly become a lock-down closer. But from what I read he has the pitches that should enable him to give an inning of decent pitching on a regular basis.

[I wish the twins were good]

On 10/7/2022 at 9:41 AM, jmlease1 said:

Colome territory 

He's been much worse than Colome, who had a bad April last year and was largely decent after that. They were right to wash their hands of that mess and it would be vomit inducing not to lose Pagan's agent's number too. I don't think it's all that much of a stretch to say he single handedly tanked their season insofar as you can point to any one player on the roster.

[ashbury]

7 Weird Old Tricks To Boost Your Bullpen (#5 to sign your worst reliever to an extension will blow your mind!). CLICK HERE.

[Trov]

History has shown small changes to relief pitchers can make huge pay offs for at least a season.  Pagan has stuff, and if the team can get a small adjustment to get that to pay off, go for it.  The guy we traded for, Lopez, had no success as a starter for most part.  He went into pen and had a great year last year, until we traded for him.  

I am not saying slot Pagan back into closer role at all, but do not just DFA him.  Let him come to camp, work on anything new, and see from there. 

[David Maro]

Stuff but no control!! We all see it,but this FO seems to think they can fix pitchers like him. Move on already let him go somewhere else. We moved on from Duffey,why not Pagan. This team needs pitching,pitching and more pitching. After that catching and more catching.

[nicholas Anderson]

This is a bit off topic, but since I am posting 4 days after the last post I think it is fair.  Here is a different way of looking at it. Would you want Taylor Rogers back? If your answer is yes, take a closer look at Rogers and Pagan's numbers. They are shockingly similar. Rogers pitched 1.1 more innings, but they both faced 274 batters (all stats per baseball reference). They both struck out 84 batters, but Pagan gave up 7 more walks. To even this out Rogers hit 10 more batters!  Pagan gave up 5 more home runs, yet Rogers gave up 3 more earned runs. Rogers had better FIP, Whip, and SO/W ratios. Meanwhile Pagan actually had a lower ERA and ERA+. Pagan's ERA was going in the right direction, while Roger's ERA stats (ERA, ERA+, and FIP) got significantly worse in Milwaukee.  Given these numbers, I don't know that I would want either, it is all a matter of dollars and who's roster spot they are taking.  What I do know, is that Padres did not "win" the trade.  Either the Twins will win or we both lost, depending on what happens with Paddack over the next couple of years. 

[Minny505]

On 10/7/2022 at 6:22 AM, Linus said:

This. He has stuff, hell so does Megill. What neither have is command which is WAY more important than stuff

Eno Sarris of The Athletic has published more research and data on this very topic than any other data analyst in the public sphere. 

His summary is that the RPs that allow the fewest runs have the best stuff. There is a very direct and strong correlation between these metrics, while command has near zero correlation.

For SPs, stuff still has a stronger correlation with preventing runs than command, but command is still statistically significant.

So while it may feel like command is WAY more important to many fans, it just simply is not as important at all. The results which is unfeeling, factual data, do not agree. 

Also, Megill has okay stuff, but nothing to get excited about. Pagan has legitimately great stuff and his results are a very incredible outlier in Eno's model. It happens. No predictive model will be perfect 100% of the time. 

Pagan's real problem is not that he has poor command per se, but rather the problem is that when he does miss, he misses middle-middle with a cement mixer at an almost unbelievable rate...as if he has a giant open bet with a ruthless bookie, on himself to giving up a homerun in that appearance.