Article: Twins Should Hit Waivers For Pitching Help

[Nick Nelson]

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?442-Twins-Should-Hit-Waivers-For-Pitching-Help

[Shane Wahl]

Bowden is so obviously the right decision.

[ossieO]

DFA Nishioka and Mastroianni to make room on the 40 man. 1 will never get claimed, and the other is redundant with Clete Thomas.

[Guest USAFChief]

Not opposed to either move, but you have to ask yourself, why would the Angels, with their own bullpen issues, put a reliever 'who posted a 3.00 ERA and 9.33 K/9 rate last year' on waivers?

 

Bowden seems a no-brainer though.

[Nick Nelson]

To be fair, I'm not sure Bowden will actually hit waivers. Boston might find a trade partner before they need to expose him. But the specific examples are less important than the overall strategy.

[Highabove]

If there are extra cost involved, the Pohlad's won't do it.

[mlhouse]

Waiver wire? I guess it could lead to marginal improvement but that clearly is not the answer.

 

Here is the problem. We simply do not have a very good team and we need to rebuild. The run from 2002-2009 is over. The Twins need to get Joe Benson and Brian Dozier up, along with Chris Parmalee and Ben Revere. I would not be adverse to seeing them bring up Sano and Rosario either. The concept of moving these prospects up station by station essentially ends in a full scale rebuild. Players can be developed at the major league level without extended, one level per year minor league experience. Two World Series proves that. AS I have stated before, in 1984 Kent Hrbek was the American League MVP runner up. Using the one step at a time approach that the current Twins management use with high school signees, he would have been in AA ball instead.

 

Greg Gagne, Kirby Puckett, Tim Laudner, Gary Gaetti, Frank Viola, Randy Bush, and Kent Hrbek all essentially jumped from A or AA ball into the big leagues after one or two years in the minors. IT took time to win championships, but they were reasonably competitive relatively quickly.

 

Now is the time to follow a new approach and rebuild the team.

[twinswon1991]

"Blackburn is an established major league talent". Have you ever seen him pitch?? If not for the stupid contract the twinkies wouldve cut him 2 years ago. Blacky has no business being on an mlb roster. The injury was a HUGE break for the twins because Liam is much more talented.

[Alex]

"Blackburn is an established major league talent". Have you ever seen him pitch?? If not for the stupid contract the twinkies wouldve cut him 2 years ago. Blacky has no business being on an mlb roster. The injury was a HUGE break for the twins because Liam is much more talented.

 

Blackburn is hopefully only out one game, and he's had two relatively solid starts, especially considering last year. Every source says there is more movement on his pitches and he's hitting his spots. Whether that will keep up or not is another thing, but he's been the Twins #2 pitcher. Again, that's not saying much, but with Baker going down, Blackburn needs to have a good season. It will be an added bonus if Hendricks and Swarzak pitch well, too, especially with an ailing and flailing Liriano, who does not look like a ML pitcher right now. Twins are going to need them all, but they should definitely be looking elsewhere as well.

[peterb18]

Agree with twinswon1991---Blackburn is a marginal big-leaguer at best. We need to get rid of this pitch to contact philosophy. It is ok for some--but when you have a hard thrower--let him bust it in there. I think one of the reasons of Liriano's decline is too many thoughts in his mind. Ever listen to Tom Kelly on TV when he talks about hitting the 4 spot,etc. Could be one of the problems Winners had last year--they put too much on his plate. Although, Winners is not a power pitcher--just an example. A power pitcher cannot do this! There has to be a reason why we don't have many of those type pitchers in the system.

[ScottyB]

Who gets sent down today when they put Marquis on the 25 man? Does Liriano have any more options? If so send him down for a rotation of Pavano, Blackburn, Marquis, Hendricks and Swarzak - but keep an eye to the waiver wire - or Oswalt?

[JB_Iowa]

Given how bad the Twins pitching has been, waiver wire cast-offs from other teams should be better than the Twins own cast-offs. But once they get here, would the Twins know what to do with them or how to keep them healthy?

 

I had resigned myself to a pretty dismal season this year. The one thing that would make me satisfied about the season is to see them make progress on rebuilding. i do not want to see another summer full of non-moves or last minute moves gaining nothing.

[PogueBear]

Regarding Baker, could the Twins decline next year's option and resign him for, say, 2 years, $3-4 million? I think it would make sense for both parties. The Twins are desperately lacking pitching depth. By re-signing Baker, if he ever returned to form, they would be adding an experienced veteran pitcher on the cheap. For Baker, this injury couldn't have come at a worse time, so I think he'd be willing to consider some, albeit cheap, job security.

[Boom Boom]

The Twins should have been scouring the waiver wire earlier. Even with their original projected rotation completely healthy they were extremely thin. And maybe I'm in the minority on this, but I'm through crossing my fingers for Liriano. He's done.

[SweetOne69]

Regarding Baker, could the Twins decline next year's option and resign him for, say, 2 years, $3-4 million? I think it would make sense for both parties. The Twins are desperately lacking pitching depth. By re-signing Baker, if he ever returned to form, they would be adding an experienced veteran pitcher on the cheap. For Baker, this injury couldn't have come at a worse time, so I think he'd be willing to consider some, albeit cheap, job security.

Yes they could do that, but I don't see Baker getting more than a 1 year offer for $1M plus incentives.

[deanlambrecht]

Waiver wire? I guess it could lead to marginal improvement but that clearly is not the answer.

 

Here is the problem. We simply do not have a very good team and we need to rebuild. The run from 2002-2009 is over. The Twins need to get Joe Benson and Brian Dozier up, along with Chris Parmalee and Ben Revere. I would not be adverse to seeing them bring up Sano and Rosario either. The concept of moving these prospects up station by station essentially ends in a full scale rebuild. Players can be developed at the major league level without extended, one level per year minor league experience. Two World Series proves that. AS I have stated before, in 1984 Kent Hrbek was the American League MVP runner up. Using the one step at a time approach that the current Twins management use with high school signees, he would have been in AA ball instead.

 

Greg Gagne, Kirby Puckett, Tim Laudner, Gary Gaetti, Frank Viola, Randy Bush, and Kent Hrbek all essentially jumped from A or AA ball into the big leagues after one or two years in the minors. IT took time to win championships, but they were reasonably competitive relatively quickly.

 

Now is the time to follow a new approach and rebuild the team.

Well, sure, but... Nick's article is all about using the waiver wire to bring in pitching that might be useful in rebuilding, and at the least would be no worse than the marginal bottom-dweller pitchers we have now in terms of immediate usefulness. In fact, he specifically states that rebuilding is his recommended strategy in his conclusion: "if they can bring in . . . young [pitchers] with a chance to fill a need for years to come, that would be a big win."

 

This recommended strategy aligns perfectly well with your comments about bringing up position players, yet position players haven't really been our main problem this year. We can bring up all those prospects you mention, and they may indeed field their positions well and potentially hit the cover off the ball on a regular basis, but that won't address the Twins primary need now and in the future: pitching.

[SirLoin]

At this point, do you put Liriano in the bullpen and leave Swarzak in the rotation? Liriano could be an ok one inning guy. At this point, would they be any worse off with that setup?

[DAM DC Twins Fans]

Waiver wire--other teams cast offs are not the answer. Terry Ryan may be a great GM but other GMs are not dumb. If a pitcher is put on waivers there is a reason.

 

Put Liriano in the pen. Put Hendricks and Swarzak at the top of the rotation and hope they develop. Then draft a good college pitcher this summer who has a chance to help us in 2013 or more importantly 2014. Bring up the kids (Dozier, Benson, etc) and let them grow here. That also means playing Parmalee at 1B regularly--not Morneau--Parmalee is the 1B of the future.

 

The Twins are not going to be a contender until 2014 at best. Lets start building that team now.

[jmlease1]

If there are extra cost involved, the Pohlad's won't do it.

That's garbage. Pohlads will spend if the baseball staff says it's worth it.

[stringer bell]

I think that if Liriano can't be sent to the minors, they should swap him and Maloney at least temporarily. I like the way Maloney pitches and though the ERA is high, it's a small sample size. Liriano can try to get his form back in low pressure situations and I think Maloney gives the tam a better chance to win than Fragile Frankie.

[ashbury]

Liriano could be an ok one inning guy.

Designating someone a one-inning guy means high leverage innings when you do put him in; no bullpen has a one-inning mopup guy. So then, how comfortable would you be bringing Liriano in for the eighth inning with a one-run lead?

 

There's also the question of getting him to accept a one-inning high leverage role. Just because Perkins did, doesn't mean Liriano would; two very different people. If someone doesn't embrace the role, he's not likely to succeed.

 

I'm fine with putting Francisco in the pen, if it's to find himself again, during low-leverage situations.

[Steve Lein]

LaVelle says Liriano has been in the league long enough that he can reject an assignment to the minors (5 years of service time). Not exactly sure what happens if this were to be the case in this scenario, but I'm guessing it'd be like DFA-ing him - anyone know for sure?

[Highabove]

That's garbage. Pohlads will spend if the baseball staff says it's worth it.

The current makeup of the Bullpen shows that Jim Pohlad will not spend any more money. Before the Season started, Ryan stated that the Bullpen scares him.

Why didn't he spend some money and do something about it?

[sonofkenny]

The calls for a total rebuilding are off base...offensively I think the Twins have a solid core. Parmalee and Dozier will come up eventually to round things out...pitching is another story...

 

But doing something out panic never works...if the right opportunity presented itself to get a guy that really could help I think the Pohlad's would pony up...until then they should work with what they have....

[Alex]

Waiver wire--other teams cast offs are not the answer. Terry Ryan may be a great GM but other GMs are not dumb. If a pitcher is put on waivers there is a reason.

 

Put Liriano in the pen. Put Hendricks and Swarzak at the top of the rotation and hope they develop. Then draft a good college pitcher this summer who has a chance to help us in 2013 or more importantly 2014. Bring up the kids (Dozier, Benson, etc) and let them grow here. That also means playing Parmalee at 1B regularly--not Morneau--Parmalee is the 1B of the future.

 

The Twins are not going to be a contender until 2014 at best. Lets start building that team now.

The Twins had (and I believe currently have) the 30th ranked staff in baseball. It's definitely possible that there are pitchers on much better teams that are out of options that would be be better than what the Twins have, even if it's just to add depth in case of more injuries.

[Nick Nelson]

The Twins had (and I believe currently have) the 30th ranked staff in baseball. It's definitely possible that there are pitchers on much better teams that are out of options that would be be better than what the Twins have, even if it's just to add depth in case of more injuries.

Exactly. Not every pickup has to be the one that turns around the franchise. The focus should be on improving your overall talent -- to whatever degree -- with each move. Incremental upgrades.

[darin617]

At this point, do you put Liriano in the bullpen and leave Swarzak in the rotation? Liriano could be an ok one inning guy. At this point, would they be any worse off with that setup?

The only problem with the swap is do you really want to pitch Liriano in anything more than a mop up role. You want to bring a guy into a close game or a lead when he cannot throw strikes?

[darin617]

Waiver wire--other teams cast offs are not the answer. Terry Ryan may be a great GM but other GMs are not dumb. If a pitcher is put on waivers there is a reason.

 

Put Liriano in the pen. Put Hendricks and Swarzak at the top of the rotation and hope they develop. Then draft a good college pitcher this summer who has a chance to help us in 2013 or more importantly 2014. Bring up the kids (Dozier, Benson, etc) and let them grow here. That also means playing Parmalee at 1B regularly--not Morneau--Parmalee is the 1B of the future.

 

The Twins are not going to be a contender until 2014 at best. Lets start building that team now.

Not always. Some teams need to free up a roster spot for a player who has no options left.

[Ultima Ratio]

Either of these two acquisitions would be most welcome, though I think we are going to have make a trade to get bullpen help worthy of the name. We desperately need a power/strike RH set up pitcher, though I've been please with Burton's outings thus far.

[Mchans24]

Now is not the time to bring a bunch of position players up from the minor leagues. Our lineup is actually really solid right now. We need Perkins to pitch like he did last year and Capps to have an outstanding year and we will be an average team within 10 games at the end of the year. While some of us might contend that we would rather see them tank it and get a better draft pick, Target Field is in its third season and they need to keep attendance up. Hope that Gibson, Wimmers, and the kid from Stanford are all close to MLB ready next year, because we have nobody ready to step into that rotation!! Is rich Harden with anyone yet? Big time arm that could be great trade bait at the deadline.