The Twins Have a Type

[Matt Braun]

With the acquisition of Pablo López, the Minnesota Twins confirmed their favorite style of starting pitcher to acquire: a troubled, perhaps underperforming arm capable of becoming something more with a few tweaks. 

Image courtesy of Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports

 

Broadly speaking, that outline covers Chris Paddack, Tyler Mahle, and now López; one could argue that Kenta Maeda fits the mold as well. The idea probably stems from two sources: first, the Twins acknowledging themselves as an undesirable home for arms. Big-name starters have eschewed Minnesota for years. Despite recent infamous twirls with Yu Darvish and Zack Wheeler, Michael Pineda remains the richest starter to brace the cold under Derek Falvey’s watch. Realizing that players have no say in trades, Falvey and Co. decided to force the issue, utilizing the lack of consent involved in deals to pool together talented arms. 

The second part is the more interesting one—and its assumptions will likely decide how successful the Twins are with their strategy.

Pitching in the modern baseball landscape is—and this is the technical term for it—absolutely bonkers. Arms become studs overnight—hello, Evan Phillips—as hefty advancements in technology make adjustments a science, no longer an art only understood by a few masters of the craft; a good pitching coach must communicate what the computer knows. Good teams aren't alone in claiming these resources; every team in MLB has them. But the most consistent franchises identify players most capable of breaking out, freeing them from the clutches of an ignorant team while reaping the rewards of a flourishing arm. The pickpocketed squad has no clue what happened. The Pirates lose 100 games.

Looking beyond the horrifying societal implications of technological modernity, the scientific pitching movement hasn’t created an abundance of frustratingly talented pitchers—those will always exist—but it has made it tantalizingly irresistible to acquire them. “I can fix him,” thinks a team watching a guy with an ideal fastball get crushed for a 4.70 ERA. Phil Maton has pitched for three teams over six seasons. Phil Maton’s career rWAR is negative. Phil Maton will continue to have a bullpen spot on one of the smartest teams in baseball. Perhaps hearing the same information from a new source proves to be the catalyst. Or, as sports fans have known for decades, a guy just needs a change of scenery. If it doesn't work, the team may look silly, but that's the price of doing business.

Minnesota took this concept and ran with it in 2021. They acquired Paddack, one of the more notorious problems in baseball, pulled some strings on his pitching package, and came out with a renewed starter… until he got injured. Players still have ligaments, after all. They then acquired Mahle, watched him be exactly as maddening as he was in Cincinnati for 16 1/3 innings, and failed to help him realize his potential… because he, too, got injured. This pitching business sounds hazardous. Whether López’s tale differs is up to him and whatever sacrifices the baseball gods choose to accept. 

While Minnesota hasn’t yet experienced success with the plan, other teams have reaped great riches. Perhaps most famously, Houston understood that Gerrit Cole should not be throwing sinkers, thank you very much, and they enjoyed two years of some of the most dominating starting pitching baseball has seen in recent years. Toronto somehow didn’t give up on Robbie Ray, transforming him into a Cy Young winner after a year where he walked nearly 18% of all hitters. Kevin Gausman evolved from pitching in relief for Cincinnati in 2019 into a legitimate Cy Young candidate. 

Minnesota hasn’t yet seen a transformation like the previous arms, but it injuries are the culprit, not poor targeting.

Rather than tinker with potential, why not shoot for the best of the best? For starters, the most impactful arms in the game command a royal ransom in return, something that few teams are ok with meeting these days. You can criticize Minnesota for not going after Zac Gallen, but remember that no team yet has met Arizona's asking price for him; the Twins aren't an anomaly. Also, there just aren't many available aces these days. Sandy Alcántara is going to remain a Marlin for a few years, Milwaukee shut down trade noise, and Oakland is currently a picked-over walrus carcass. Is Cole Irvin your fallback plan?

This isn’t to say that all their pitchers will figure it out eventually because, well, if everyone is super, then no one is. The game is in upside: what can you do in the future with your raw stuff? A player’s past hardly defines them; their measurables reign supreme and the Twins have gathered a hearty assortment of players with fascinating under-the-hood numbers. We shall see if the plan works.

 

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[mikelink45]

It is an interesting strategy, but it has to work or it is just a pathway to frustration and the nearest emergency room.  Collecting arms and hoping is tough.  Getting your young arms up and letting them learn is a better strategy and one the Guardians have followed. 

Another wait and see experience for fans. 

[rwilfong86]

1 minute ago, mikelink45 said:

It is an interesting strategy, but it has to work or it is just a pathway to frustration and the nearest emergency room.  Collecting arms and hoping is tough.  Getting your young arms up and letting them learn is a better strategy and one the Guardians have followed. 

Another wait and see experience for fans. 

I'm curious to see if SWR and Balazovic see any time in the Majors this season. I'm guessing if they do something went terribly wrong.

[EGFTShaw]

Data is incomplete.  Your use of examples started last year with Paddock.

The FO is simply doing what they can since 2021, because I never really saw it before although it may have been a case that you needed to prove to the owners the previous path wasn't going to work, of going after good pitchers via trade vs the pervious scrap heap/reclamation type.

Maeda could be lumped in with the others, I guess. 

Gray - Trade
Paddock - Trade
Mahle - Trade

Ryan - Trade although he hadn't been an established MLB pitcher at the time.

[JD-TWINS]

Gotta like the fact that we have 8 guys that can get outs at 3.30 - 4.00 ERA level with a couple more behind them with potential & Paddack coming in August/September.

Varland - Winder in St Paul

SWR & Balazovic in deep emergency St. Paul

Paddack in August/September possibly

Maeda in Pen

Mahle - Gray - López - Ryan - Ober

………………………..

Injured in last 2 years:

Maeda - Gray - Mahle - Winder - Ober - Paddack - López 

Lots of risk - need lots of bodies!!!

[mikelink45]

1 hour ago, rwilfong86 said:

I'm curious to see if SWR and Balazovic see any time in the Majors this season. I'm guessing if they do something went terribly wrong.

I agree, I do want to see our young arms get some starts - so injuries will determine their chances. 

[beckmt]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

It is an interesting strategy, but it has to work or it is just a pathway to frustration and the nearest emergency room.  Collecting arms and hoping is tough.  Getting your young arms up and letting them learn is a better strategy and one the Guardians have followed. 

Another wait and see experience for fans. 

The Guardians have gotten a fair number of their pitchers in trade, only seem to identify them when in the minors.  Same concept only they seem to get some of their pitchers as throwins to deals.

[rv78]

The FO, due to the inability to get top free agent pitchers to come to Minnesota, or their unwillingness to spend enough money to get them, have settled with the current strategy of broken pitchers we'll call Plan A. I agree that getting your young arms up and letting then learn may be a better strategy, Plan B. It appears that this FO has decided to make that Plan C or the "Fallback Plan" when the injuries return, which is a high probability. One thing it has shown is that, if you don't have enough faith in using Plan B, you maybe have not done a very good job drafting young arms.

[chpettit19]

Trading for these types of guys with with just a couple years of control left likely isn't sustainable. But isn't a bad part of an overall strategy. They need to start developing some frontline guys in house. Whether by drafting and developing, using the international signing period and developing, or trading for prospects and developing. A mix of improved development (I think they develop major league pitchers pretty well, but need to produce some frontline guys. My hope is on Prielipp) and these types of good, not great pitchers that they can turn into great pitchers would be wonderful and lead to real success.

I will say that if Duran, Alcala, Moran, Jax, Canterino, Ober, Winder, and Henriquez can form a shutdown bullpen that is definitely a nice bit of internal development. Canterino, Winder, and Ober on the list due to real questions about their ability to hold up in the rotation.

[Blyleven2011]

Not another plan ...

The plan on how they play the game the past few years is unexciting but it's still baseball to a degree ...

Their plan to acquire dumpster diving rejects  didn't work at fixing them with tweaks ...

Their plan has changed again for acquiring pitchers and it seems to be better going forward with a better squad of estabished starters that they hope stay healthy  or they can tweak a few things in their delivery to make them better  ...

So much for hearing the pipeline had up and coming pitching prospects that we won't see much of this year unless there are injuries ...

FO's  scouting reports must be terrible on our pitching pipeline  if we won't let them pitch in the MLB by acquiring veteran starters ...

I want to see that pipeline pitch , that is suppose to be part of the plan isn't it ...

[HoskenPowell]

LH pen piece would make me feel better.  Moore/Chafin/Hand???

[MN_ExPat]

5 hours ago, rwilfong86 said:

I'm curious to see if SWR and Balazovic see any time in the Majors this season. I'm guessing if they do something went terribly wrong.

It's fair to wonder and question if Blazer Beam bounces back from a nightmare season (I for one, believe he has the talent and stuff to be able to do so... but we shall see).  Depending on his health, and if he is pitching even close to how he was performing at the A - AA levels, I'm willing to bet that we see him for at least spot start or a late season call up.   

However, SWR had a great season overall and pitched a decent 5 innings in his MLB debut (as a 21 y.o. at that)

Here's SWR's line last year...

While SWR is most likely further behind in the pitching depth chart, he is still currently a legit prospect who just made his MLB debut.  That isn't to say that I believe we should hang all our hopes and expectations on him, but he showed last year that he is capable of making at least a solid contribution at the ML level. 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

I wonder if tweaking/changing a pitcher's habitual violent pitching motion, could add to the pitcher's injury risk? Do the muscles and ligaments grow accustomed (get built up) to being used in violent ways using one certain motion or several certain motions and specific ways? And do minor changes in this violent set of variable motions, sometimes result in injuries to these ligaments and muscles?  

[ashbury]

4 hours ago, Matt Braun said:

This isn’t to say that all their pitchers will figure it out eventually because, well, if everyone is super, then no one is.

This touches on a downside to the strategy: the opportunity cost. If several of your roster spots are taken up with "projects" of varying types, and you know only a percentage will pan out, then you spend a lot of major league innings finding out, and incurring losses in your season record while you stay the course.

If you invest in "projects" who can figure things out at the minor league level, this cost with the big club's pennant race doesn't occur.

Of course there are no guarantees in human performance, and the "sure thing" players on your roster may not reach expectations either. It's all a matter of degree, not black-and-white.

But when you load up on high-ceiling injury risks, it's possibly a bit cynical to then moan "oh the injury bug hit us again," .

[Karbo]

2 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Gotta like the fact that we have 8 guys that can get outs at 3.30 - 4.00 ERA level with a couple more behind them with potential & Paddack coming in August/September.

Varland - Winder in St Paul

SWR & Balazovic in deep emergency St. Paul

Paddack in August/September possibly

Maeda in Pen

Mahle - Gray - López - Ryan - Ober

………………………..

Injured in last 2 years:

Maeda - Gray - Mahle - Winder - Ober - Paddack - López 

Lots of risk - need lots of bodies!!!

Maeda will start according to the FO

[Karbo]

IMO they must develop pitchers from within, especially with the plan Rocco uses for starters lengths. This year there are 2 starters (Mahle and Lopez) that have a history of going deeper into games. I'm interested to see if this will alter the plan any. As stands now, I can't see any top starters wanting to pitch for a team that won't let them go deeper.

[South Dakota Tom]

I do like it when people quote The Incredibles, Matt. 

[IA Bean Counter]

2 hours ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Not another plan ...

The plan on how they play the game the past few years is unexciting but it's still baseball to a degree ...

Their plan to acquire dumpster diving rejects  didn't work at fixing them with tweaks ...

Their plan has changed again for acquiring pitchers and it seems to be better going forward with a better squad of estabished starters that they hope stay healthy  or they can tweak a few things in their delivery to make them better  ...

So much for hearing the pipeline had up and coming pitching prospects that we won't see much of this year unless there are injuries ...

FO's  scouting reports must be terrible on our pitching pipeline  if we won't let them pitch in the MLB by acquiring veteran starters ...

I want to see that pipeline pitch , that is suppose to be part of the plan isn't it ...

Umm . . .  We are creating more of a pipeline,  but also realized we used 3 of our better pitching prospects from the 21 draft class to get the current pitchers we have.  I personally like it.  We can utilize them for now, and worst case flip them for an awfully good prospect at the deadline.  We have never said before we have too much pitching.  We can now let these pitchers develop in AAA rather than sending them to the wolves.  

We have a couple projects in AAA this year we have picked up off the scrap heap I am happy about.  

For long term Pitchers we have Joe as #1.   Then I personal think Varland will be the next best pitcher of the next group.  I hope 1 of Ober/Winder can stay healthy enough to be a quality pitcher.   Personally that is a pretty good pipeline.  Add in SWR, Priellip, Raya, Festa and Balazovic,  I think the starting pitcher pipeline will be ok.    

[jmlease1]

4 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Gotta like the fact that we have 8 guys that can get outs at 3.30 - 4.00 ERA level with a couple more behind them with potential & Paddack coming in August/September.

Varland - Winder in St Paul

SWR & Balazovic in deep emergency St. Paul

Paddack in August/September possibly

Maeda in Pen

Mahle - Gray - López - Ryan - Ober

………………………..

Injured in last 2 years:

Maeda - Gray - Mahle - Winder - Ober - Paddack - López 

Lots of risk - need lots of bodies!!!

I think SWR might be ahead of Winder at this point. Paddack is unlikely to pitch this year in MLB, I think. they're certainly not going to rush him back. Maeda is starting, so Ober is likely in Saint Paul.

Even if you have a relatively healthy group you still probably want 10 good options for 5 spots to get you through the year. twins are getting close to that. I'd say the starting depth chart looks something like:

1. Gray
2. Lopez
3. Ryan
4. Mahle
5. Maeda
6. Ober
7. Varland
8. SWR
9. Winder
10. Balazovic
11. Henriquez
12. Sands
13. Enlow

Paddack doesn't get on the list until he's healthy for me. but that depth is pretty good. Can't really put Canterino on there either since he can't stay healthy. to me the options don't start to wobble too badly until you get past SWR; not sure Winder can hold up as a starter, Balazovic had a really rough year, unclear how good Henriquez is for me, Sands looks like more of a bullpen option, and Enlow came off the 40-man. But that's how it's going to be once you get past 7-8 guys. questions.

It will be very interesting to see how guys like Prielipp, Raya, and Festa develop this year.

[Blyleven2011]

40 minutes ago, IA Bean Counter said:

 

We have a couple projects in AAA this year we have picked up off the scrap heap I am happy about.  

 

Who are the projects  ???

As far as projects  , balzovic and enlow as prospects need to show some promise  ..

Nothing is jumping out at me who we acquired as a project ...

[DocBauer]

Just to be fair, it's better for every team to draft/sign/develop as much of your pitching staff as you can. It's just that some do it better than others, for whatever reasons/histories. Cleveland has acquired a lot of their pitching from outside their organization and finished developing them, or putting on a final polish before turning them loose. The Rays have done much the same, while also developing their own. They both do a great job as an organization, but they don't just draft and sign players and 4-5yrs later suddenly have a great pitcher and then sit back and laugh at everyone else for not being able to figure it out.

As I commented on in a couple previous posts recently, when you examine the drafts of our current FO, and allow for the missed 2020 for all but a handful of prospects who were at the alternate site, the current "pipeline" to Minnesota simply can't and doesn't include arms drafted in 2020-21-22. So the fact that they haven't turned out a collection of top of the rotation arms from the 2017-18-19 drafts already is a bit misleading. 

All that being said, we SHOULD start to see a couple nice rotation arms in the rotation over the next couple of seasons or the FO should be thoroughly chastised. IMO, Ryan is included in development as he was acquired as a milb arm, and has been turned loose and developed to this point by the Twins. We can't give credit to other organizations who trade for someone just about ready and not also give credit to the Twins. Ober has definitely flashed. And we've done some good things in the pen with young talent to this point. Obviously, we need to continue to see MORE young, good looking arms in the rotation.

But adding young and young-ish arms with upside is a smart way to fill in the gaps, especially while waiting for said young talent. And it's not as if other teams don't do this, or that the Twins haven't done it before as well. Hughes a few years back is probably one of the best examples of this plan of attack working out as hoped for. 

I DON'T LIKE this as a repeated process year after year, acquiring only 2yrs of a good arm and riding it, or "tweaking it" to be better and then doing a repeat. It's just not sustainable long term. And I don't know that the Twins have ever truly "targeted" high injury potential arms as some feel they do. Maeda had some question marks when he came to the the States. He turned out just fine until early 2021. Gray's problems last season were primarily his hamstrings. Mahle felt great initially and openly states he believes his issues were the strange offseason and then trying to do too much too soon and tiring his arm. (Nothing find in a pair of MRI's seems to substantiate this). If these two are good to go this year, the trade and rent with the option to buy longer plan looks pretty good. If the prospects never fully take off and this becomes a repeated pattern year to year, it's going to look like a pretty poor plan B option.

[Stew]

The twins will have to pay 20+ million to compete for a proven good starter. To me it seems expensive to do it that way. Pitchers don't want to come to Minnesota. First it's colder than some of the other destinations. Next we have the playoff losing streak. Also the stadium is a little bit of a hitters park. And lastly most in the league don't think the twins can spend enough. Added that you also have to have stars around them. There are two approaches that I can see. Tell me if I'm missing something please. The first approach is to develop good young players at every position. And then ad to it players who are free agents who are premium grade. The problem with that is timing the development of your young men so you have the most positions covered by them for a low cost in payroll. Then we have to put bid for a player or two. We will have to spend 2 or 3 million more than others. The other direction is to do some of what we been doing and compete on every level. That will require us to spend upwards of 175 million or maybe more . We could have gotten one premium pitcher and one great bat added to what we have. Our current approach is to go with young's and add to that players who are ready to hang up there gloves soon.

[Trov]

Every team has always tried to unlock something in a pitcher that has stuff.  We are not new at this.  Some pitchers buy in, make changes, and come out of no where.  Others either do not buy in, or just never make the full adjustment.  It is also easier to take on a risk of a mid-tier guy, and try to get more out of them, then a top tier guy and hope they stay there.  When the top tier fades, eventually the contract or trade looks bad, but if the pitcher coming is stays mid-tier we are fine with that, it is what we paid for, but if they climb up then it is just bonus. 

[Doctor Gast]

PIT has been notorious of being able to spot good pitching throughout the years but not being able to develop them. Plus stressing to throw sinkers which wasn't their pitch & having to abandon their better pitches. Many PIT pitchers did better away from there. MN would have been wise to pick up on some of them.

I believe there's a key that can unlock a poor pitcher into a very good one or a very good pitcher into an elite one. Johan Santana is a good example, he came to MN as a pretty good RP, He picked his circle CU in MN, the rest is history. HOU saw the key to unlock Cole. Castillo was bounce around MLB (2X at MIA) until he blossomed at the Reds.  IMO properly profiling a pitcher & have him pitch inside that profile, is crucial. Rodon was tried to fit into a certain profile that didn't fit him & he was released. SF picked him up & used him in his right profile & he was awesome. Some make better closers than SPs, it's a matter of finding the right key. 

I agree with you Matt, "A player’s past hardly defines them" or can't always go by past stats you have to look at the underlying conditions & unlocked potential. The key is someone finding that key to unlock that player.