5 Thoughts from Sunday's Twins/Phillies Exhibition Game

[Nick Nelson]

CLEARWATER, FL–Rocco Baldelli and a collection of Twins players made the two-hour trip from Fort Myers to Clearwater on Sunday to face the defending National League champion Phillies. 

Having arrived in Florida over the weekend, I too made the road trip and watched from the stands. Here are five takeaways that stuck with me on the long drive back.

Image courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

If you're familiar with the dynamics of spring training, then you know it's uncommon for established veteran regulars to make long road trips, and that was certainly true of this game, which featured José Miranda as the only regular present in the lineup. 

There were, however, several notable players involved in the game, including 2022 Twins Opening Day starter Joe Ryan, who made his first outing of the spring.

His performance ranked among the five most striking observations I came away with in a 10-8 Phillies victory at BayCare Ballpark.

1: My first impressions of the pitch clock
The addition of a pitch clock this year represents one of the most significant and impactful rule changes in Major League Baseball for some time, so naturally I was eager to see it in action. There's been a lot of early handwringing from various corners about how distracting and disruptive it is. 

To me it seemed like ... not a big deal?

It'd be tough to call the pitch clock unnoticeable, given the big digital countdown timer that now adorns the backstop, ticking off seconds from a starting point of 0:15, 0:20, or 0:25, depending on the game situation. The speedier pace of the game was definitely noticeable, especially in this case – a 10-8 spring training game is the kind of high-scoring affair that often drags on for nearly four hours, leaving everyone involved in a grumpy mood, but this one wrapped up in just over three (3:06, to be exact).

I definitely got the sense that both pitchers and hitters were more intentional about readying up and doing their thing, but no one seemed especially rushed. Ryan, who started for the Twins, has always moved at a pretty good pace and he was flying, typically delivering his pitches with seven or eight seconds left on the clock. 

2: Joe Ryan experiments with new pitches
Ryan's velocity was good in this outing, sitting in the 92-93 MPH range regularly on the stadium radar and reaching as high as 94.3 MPH, which he seemed very pleased with.

Of course, Ryan's fastball is not in question. It was the best pitch on the staff last year. Ryan's lack of overpowering secondary stuff is what limits his upside, and it's clearly something he's focused on addressing in his sophomore season, as he aims to refine a sweeping slider with more horizontal movement and a split changeup.

Ryan's outing was not especially smooth – he needed 40 pitches to get four outs before being removed in the second inning – but that's forgivable in his first spring start, and even more so with the experimentation going on. And Ryan seemed pleased on that front as well.

3: Edouard Julien bats leadoff
The big uncertainty in the wake of the Luis Arraez trade was ... who's going to replace what he brought to the table? Julien was a name that came to mind for many people (including myself) – he's been a lefty-swinging OBP machine in the minors, with no clear positional fit, harkening to Arraez in multiple ways.

Julien was fittingly in the leadoff spot on Sunday in Clearwater. As expected, he took a lot of pitches ... but not with successful results on this occasion. The second baseman struck out in all three of his at-bats, including on called third strikes in both of his first two.

For any prospect who draws way more walks than you'd expect based on his hitting ability, the question with Julien was whether his on-base skills owed more to patience or passivity. Games like Sunday's point toward the latter, and that's a perception he'll need to prove his way out of. But, it's only one game.

4: Big bases come in handy
The new larger bases are not conspicuous to the naked eye – at least not mine – but there's no doubt they will come into play throughout the upcoming season in very subtle ways. We might've seen an example on Sunday.

Miranda reached first base in the first inning, and seemed like he was inclined to steal second. During the next at-bat, he took a huge running lead on one pitch before Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto whipped the ball over to first in an effort to pick him off. Miranda scrambled back to the base, and seemed to be dead in the water. Yet, he was safe, getting his fingertip on the bag just in time to beat the tag. 

I feel confident in saying it's the first time a Twins baserunner has been saved by the bigger bases. I'm sure it won't be the last.

5: Trevor Megill struggles mightily
Outside of Ryan, the only projected member of the Twins pitching staff to appear in this game was Megill, but he's hurting his chances. 

There aren't many true position battles happening this spring, which detracts from the drama a bit, but Megill is certainly fighting for one of the last bullpen spots. The Twins love his power pitch mix, which was on display as his fastball reached 97 MPH multiple times, but the righty continues to struggle with execution, and his outing on Sunday was flat-out ugly.

Megill simply could not seem to find the zone, and when he did, he got crushed. While recording only one out, he gave up three walks and three hits, including two home runs – one of which was a grand slam. He threw only 14 of 33 pitches for strikes and mixed in a wild pitch for good measure. 

The first spring training appearance should be treated for what it is, but Megill isn't exactly on firm footing – he was a waiver pickup who posted a 4.80 ERA last year, including 7.66 after August 1st. His brutal first outing of the spring leaves him with a 162.00 ERA which will make it almost impossible to finish the exhibition season with decent numbers. And the timing of this clunker was especially bad on a day where the Twins brought in two new right-handed relievers: Dennis Santana (waivers) and Jeff Hoffman (minors deal). 

On Monday, Pablo López and the Twins face the Red Sox at JetBlue Park. We'll have plenty of coverage, with myself and John Bonnes both in the building. Make sure to check back and find all of the key takeaways from this one.

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[Fat Calvin]

It's the second game of spring training.  The guys got in their swings, the pitchers, their pitches, and nobody got hurt. 

 

[Seth Stohs]

I LOVE the pitch clock, in theory. Love the better pace of play. Don't like seeing games end because a batter didn't look up at the pitcher early enough. But I'm all for pace of play. And, to steal a bit from Trevor Plouffe, we've got to let it play out. The umps are calling it a lot the first weekend of spring games. Will they still be calling it that tight on Opening Day? Should they? They'll work through it and figure it out. 

 Nothing to worry about with Megill yet. If it's still that off in 3 weeks, we worry. I think he's got an option left... 

But, it was interesting that Brent Headrick came in for two innings before Megill and was really impressive touching 95, I believe... Obviously he's not in the running for a bullpen spot. He'll start in Wichita, but that was good to see, especially against the Phillies starters. 

[TheRealJemmer]

Good article Nick - interesting thoughts. If Ryan has better executable secondary pitches he'll spring up the depth chart. I listened to a national baseball pod many months ago with Theo where he talked about the many ideas they were cooking up to get more action back in the game, and decrease game times. Along with the larger bases, he noted that second base has been misplaced, relative to the placement of 1st and 3rd bases, since the inception of the game. 1st and 3rd bases are "inside the diamond" whereas the point of the baseline intersecting 1st and 3rd is in the middle of 2nd base, rather than the corner farthest towards center field. The combo of a larger base and moving 2nd closer by a few inches to the pitcher's mound would, in total, reduce the distance from 1st to 2nd by 13". I'm guessing they thought that was a bridge too far when implementing the larger bases.

Keep up the missives!

TheRealJemmer

[milkytoast]

After a whole offseason thinking about how Megill sucks, now it's spring training and I'm thinking about how Megill sucks.

[Major League Ready]

Megill still has 2 options.  He will have to look pretty sharp this spring or he starts his year in STP.  Taking a look at Hoffman and Santana for that last BP spot provides a couple of no risk options.  They also have the option of putting Ober or Winder in the BP to start the season.  There is also Cole Sands who can pitch 2-3 innings stints.  I seriously doubt we see Megill to start the season.

[miracleb]

Not a good start to Spring training for Megill....but let's see how he does in his 4-5th outings.  The nice thing is he will be one of the only guys who can say his ERA dropped the REST of Spring training......

[laloesch]

8 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

I LOVE the pitch clock, in theory. Love the better pace of play. Don't like seeing games end because a batter didn't look up at the pitcher early enough. But I'm all for pace of play. And, to steal a bit from Trevor Plouffe, we've got to let it play out. The umps are calling it a lot the first weekend of spring games. Will they still be calling it that tight on Opening Day? Should they? They'll work through it and figure it out. 

 Nothing to worry about with Megill yet. If it's still that off in 3 weeks, we worry. I think he's got an option left... 

But, it was interesting that Brent Headrick came in for two innings before Megill and was really impressive touching 95, I believe... Obviously he's not in the running for a bullpen spot. He'll start in Wichita, but that was good to see, especially against the Phillies starters. 

The pitch clock should have happened years ago. 3 hours 6 minutes is a start, but it would be nicer to see games in the 2-1/2 - 2hour 45 minute range.

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Megill still has 2 options.  He will have to look pretty sharp this spring or he starts his year in STP.  Taking a look at Hoffman and Santana for that last BP spot provides a couple of no risk options.  They also have the option of putting Ober or Winder in the BP to start the season.  There is also Cole Sands who can pitch 2-3 innings stints.  I seriously doubt we see Megill to start the season.

I think they need to make Sands a RP and hope they are working with him with that in mind. I’d still like to see Winder and Ober start, but I think Winder’s role is eventually as a RP. 

[mikelink45]

The pitch clock gets so much attention and it brings me back to the days when the NBA put in their shot clock.  Here is a Wiki quote - "The most extreme case occurred on November 22, 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers by a record-low score of 19–18, including 3–1 in the fourth quarter.^[3] The Pistons held the ball for minutes at a time without shooting (they attempted 13 shots for the game) to limit the impact of the Lakers' dominant George Mikan."  

Yes those were our Lakers.  But no one wanted a dull game like that repeated.  Today do we hear anything about the shot clock in basketball?  In a few years no one will talk about the shot clock in baseball.  I love it. 

[Giles Ferrell]

17 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

The pitch clock gets so much attention and it brings me back to the days when the NBA put in their shot clock.  Here is a Wiki quote - "The most extreme case occurred on November 22, 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers by a record-low score of 19–18, including 3–1 in the fourth quarter.^[3] The Pistons held the ball for minutes at a time without shooting (they attempted 13 shots for the game) to limit the impact of the Lakers' dominant George Mikan."  

Yes those were our Lakers.  But no one wanted a dull game like that repeated.  Today do we hear anything about the shot clock in basketball?  In a few years no one will talk about the shot clock in baseball.  I love it. 

Feels like the pitch clock got massive blowback this past week because the first game we saw in the spring had the clock directly behind home plate. Now watching more games, most stadiums in ST don't have it directly in the line of sight so it seems less distracting now. It will be an after-thought by midseason and no one will complain about games being on average 2 hours and 40 minutes. 

[2wins87]

First game on MLB.tv so I was happy to get to watch baseball again.  Not too many regular/top prospects to watch but still had a few takeaways.

Was trying to watch for Ryan's improved slider.  The score box on the Philly broadcast called it a "slutter" which I think was uncalled for. I remember one nice whiff when he located it well down and away.  I think there might have been one or two more, but he mostly got weak contact on it.  Phillies didn't hit him hard but his command clearly wasn't there in his first ST start.  Probably will get there by opening day.

The highlight for me was Brent Headrick. Sat 92-94 with the FB doing a pretty good job of hitting his spot at the top of the zone.  Ran it up to 95/96 a few times with 2 strikes.  He had a sweeping curve working too.  He finished Castellanos with two back-foot curves.  First one buckled him a little bit as he managed to hold up, second one he swung right over the top.  Shades of Taylor Rogers on that particular pitch to me.  Overall he seemed to be in pretty good command of all of his pitches.  I think the velocity was pretty on par with where he was midseason last year, but I'm not sure how often he was hitting 95 or 96.  If he does that regularly this year I think he moves into the conversation as a top starting pitching prospect.

Miranda didn't get too many pitches to hit but looked good in all 3 at bats.  He seems ready for the WBC.

Julien might have been jobbed by the ump on a few close pitches called for strikes (particularly in his first AB).  It's going to be an adjustment for him facing pitchers that can live around the edges more reliably.

Lee's right handed swing generates tons of contact and line drives.  Not that he's impatient now, but he seems like a guy that can only benefit by increasing patience and making the pitchers come to him.

[Trov]

In regards to pitch clock, report was the overall game time has been cut down by average 23 min in spring games.  As pointed out, that is dead time of nothing happening other than having to listen to the broadcast team filling dead air, or if you are watching in person, the guys walking around doing nothing.  

I was so happy they put in the pitch clock, it will make games easier to watch.  I loved watching games pitched by Silva and  Buehrle.  Buehrle never needed a pitch clock, he would get ball throw ball in like 5 seconds it seemed like.  His games were always under 3 hours.  Silva his games were fast mainly because he always threw strikes and guys put ball in play.  I once watched a 78 pitch complete game by him, it was crazy. 

[Dman]

It is going to be interesting to see how Jullien adjusts with 2 strikes.  I can't tell with any real accuracy but both calls looked close according to the gameday app.  He has a reputation now so I think once pitchers get to strike 2 they are going to stay on the edges with him.  Should be some good cat and mouse there once he see's the trend.

I know the odds were a bit long with Megill to start with for a pen job as I wasn't convinced about him being consistent last year.  I know it is just one game and guys can blow up in a game at any time in the season but that was far worse than I was expecting.  To make matters worse Headrick literally faced the Phillies starting lineup and gave up no runs.  Megill was essentially against AAA or lessor guys and blew up.  I mean he had all offseason to get ready if this is "who" he is it doesn't look good right now.  Still plenty of time to get back in the mix but he sure put himself in a tough spot this spring.

Again super small sample size and none of these things are trends yet as guys are ramping up and working on things. However, Laweryson was pretty impressive with his lower 90's fastball striking out all three batters faced with no walks and no hits allowed.  Granted against lessor competition but impressive non the less.

Can't get too worked up about stats in spring but helps the confidence level when guys appear to be doing well.

[Vanimal46]

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Megill still has 2 options.  He will have to look pretty sharp this spring or he starts his year in STP.  Taking a look at Hoffman and Santana for that last BP spot provides a couple of no risk options.  They also have the option of putting Ober or Winder in the BP to start the season.  There is also Cole Sands who can pitch 2-3 innings stints.  I seriously doubt we see Megill to start the season.

I’m all for moving Sands to the pen. I think he’ll be much more likely to stick on the Twins as a fastball/curve ball/occasional change up reliever. 

[Squirrel]

44 minutes ago, Giles Ferrell said:

Feels like the pitch clock got massive blowback this past week because the first game we saw in the spring had the clock directly behind home plate. Now watching more games, most stadiums in ST don't have it directly in the line of sight so it seems less distracting now. It will be an after-thought by midseason and no one will complain about games being on average 2 hours and 40 minutes. 

I don’t know if there was more than one and from my vantage couldn’t tell if there was one directly behind home. The one I noticed was just to the left of the Twins dugout looking in. It didn’t seem distracting or obtrusive at all

[Taildragger8791]

2 hours ago, laloesch said:

The pitch clock should have happened years ago. 3 hours 6 minutes is a start, but it would be nicer to see games in the 2-1/2 - 2hour 45 minute range.

Seems like most games have been in that 2:30-2:40 range. The fact that this one was barely over 3 hours with 18 runs scored is a great sign. Unbelievable that they let it get to this point before finally putting their foot down and making batters/pitchers get on with play.

[theBOMisthebomb]

3 hours ago, laloesch said:

The pitch clock should have happened years ago. 3 hours 6 minutes is a start, but it would be nicer to see games in the 2-1/2 - 2hour 45 minute range.

That was a slog of a high scoring game that came in as at the average time of a 2022 game. There were plenty of games this weekend in the time frame you mention, some quicker even.  

[PDX Twin]

The pitch clock may force me to pay attention to the game!

This could be good or bad. I'm nearly always doing something else on my computer and have the Twins on in the background, often muted. The balance of downtime to action has been such that I can keep my mind on the other activities and still see nearly every pitch---like blinking and not losing track of what you're reading or watching.

That balance will change, and it might force me to choose between whatever else I'm doing and watching the Twins. I'm not sure which I will choose. I might actually end up watching the Twins games less! 

[PatPfund]

I freakin' love the pitch clock, and really like that it has ended a game already. Don't want to see much of that in the regular season, so work it all out in Spring Training. But either way, it needs to be called for real now, and in the regular season, because the worst case scenario is umpires making up when they'll enforce the rules and when they will not. (I'm also going to laugh hard every time I hear a player getting pissy about the new rules. Absolute total payback for the frustration they've inflicted on all of the fans of the game in the past decade.) Other thoughts...

A. It was really fun to watch baseball again, and Miranda looked great. B. Ryan looked fine (and also as if he was working on stuff, which is as it should be). C. Headrick was kinda dominant, and against a lot of starters; keep hearing about the pitching pipeline, and it's a good sign one of our AA pitchers looks this good this early. D. It was fun to see Julien and Lee in Twins' uniforms.

[Doctor Gast]

I'm probably little bias but to me it seemed like the umps were calling a lot of balls for strikes against the Twins especially the rookies (Julien) and strikes for balls for the Phillies. I can't wait for the robo umps.

Soto had a great game (my 1st take was when did we picked him up?).

 

 

[2wins87]

Maybe a more niche appeal of the pitch clock, but for me watching on MLB.tv and joining about 2 innings in, the 10-second skip ahead was great for cutting out most of the dead time between pitches.  A couple guys were almost too quick with their pace, but generally I think there was about 12-15 seconds between pitches received by the catcher and around 25 seconds when there was a foul ball, so I could basically click from pitch to pitch while I caught up to the game.

I think last year it might have been something like 20 between most pitches and 30 after foul balls

[tony&rodney]

7 hours ago, 2wins87 said:

Julien might have been jobbed by the ump on a few close pitches called for strikes (particularly in his first AB).  It's going to be an adjustment for him facing pitchers that can live around the edges more reliably.

 

Julien will need to be aggessive when necessary, but if he was on the wrong side of several pitches we should note that detail. Last summer, in the minor league games I watched on milb. com, Julien had more bad calls than anyone else by a substantial margin. It sometimes seemed like he was the victim of more poor strike calls than everyone else combined. This does not make any sense at all and I don't have an idea why that happens to him.

What there any discussion of using the auto zone calls in Spring Training this year? 

[James]

7 hours ago, Trov said:

In regards to pitch clock, report was the overall game time has been cut down by average 23 min in spring games.  As pointed out, that is dead time of nothing happening other than having to listen to the broadcast team filling dead air, or if you are watching in person, the guys walking around doing nothing.  

I was so happy they put in the pitch clock, it will make games easier to watch.  I loved watching games pitched by Silva and  Buehrle.  Buehrle never needed a pitch clock, he would get ball throw ball in like 5 seconds it seemed like.  His games were always under 3 hours.  Silva his games were fast mainly because he always threw strikes and guys put ball in play.  I once watched a 78 pitch complete game by him, it was crazy. 

Buehrle pitched quickly.  There was no messing around.  I went to a game in 2010 that was Carl Pavano (who also worked quickly) vs. Buehrle.  The score ended 3-2 Twins and total game time was 1:52.  It was a Saturday game too, so I really wasn't ready for the game to be done by 8 o'clock.  It probably helped that both pitchers pitched the entire game as well. 

 

With the pitch clock, I imagine we're going to see a few more games like that one. 

[Shaitan]

10 hours ago, Trov said:

In regards to pitch clock, report was the overall game time has been cut down by average 23 min in spring games.  As pointed out, that is dead time of nothing happening other than having to listen to the broadcast team filling dead air, or if you are watching in person, the guys walking around doing nothing.  

Okay, I may be a convert if I don't have to listen to Bert.

[bird]

12 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Megill still has 2 options.  He will have to look pretty sharp this spring or he starts his year in STP.  Taking a look at Hoffman and Santana for that last BP spot provides a couple of no risk options.  They also have the option of putting Ober or Winder in the BP to start the season.  There is also Cole Sands who can pitch 2-3 innings stints.  I seriously doubt we see Megill to start the season.

My bet is on Winder or Sands occupying the final spot, and with the idea that they spot start a game or three, avoiding those Aaron Sanchez/Derek Rodriguez starts. The first long-term replacement spot, and there WILL be one, would perhaps go to Ober if he sustains his effectiveness in St. Paul. And i have a hunch that Ronny Henriquez ends up as a bullpen stud as an injury replacement, probably by mid-season. (BTW, without an ounce of expertise, I predict Jovani Moran, Jorge Alcala, and Ronny Henriquez shock us with how good they are). It's good to have quality depth, isn't it?. While we can take Falvine to task for a lot of things, they deserve at least SOME credit for generating some impressive quality depth all around the field.

[theBOMisthebomb]

2 hours ago, Shaitan said:

Okay, I may be a convert if I don't have to listen to Bert.

Bert Blyleven hasn't announced a Twins game since September 2, 2020. 

[leopoty]

I really enjoyed the pace with the pitch clock. It was noticeable the players were trying hard to be ready. It will be interesting to see how it works in the regular season but I am a fan right now!