New Years Resolutions: Starting Pitching

7 hours ago, Minny505 said:

Recency bias in the Dobnak vs Ober attitude is stunning for Twins Daily readers. I expect a less hot-take crowd here. 

I would not be surprised at all if Dobnak had a better season than Ryan or Ober, contingent on health for all. I don't expect it, but I would not be surprised. Dobnak was better than either Ryan or Ober thru their first X MLB starts and Dobnak's success was spread across two seasons where hitters had an offseason to make the adjustment and he adjusted right back.

I do expect Dobnak to be better than Bundy, given the same amount of starts.

I don't necessarily think that Dobnak will have a clearly better season than Ryan or Ober. That said, I think they're all three very underrated and underappreciated arms and expect them all to surprise a lot of people (especially those who constantly complain that we haven't spent several hundred million dollars on a bunch of guys on the wrong side of 30 so far this winter) this summer.

16 hours ago, h2oface said:

Spring Training? Are we talking Spring Training!?! 

I have seen some great Spring Training runs never translate to games that actually count. They are nice to see.... but it is still Spring Training. 

Point was - they should have let him fly as a starter in April after the great spring training run. 2nd point was - if he throws like a stud this spring, we might have something. He didn't get the chance to translate to games that actually count last year. Not on him.

22 hours ago, In My La Z boy said:

He was by far our best starter in spring training last year. He should have been in the rotation to start 2021. Hindsight says he was mismanaged. He deserves a spot in this rotation. He will have a good spring in my opinion. I am a Dobber fan, and still believe - as does the front office. He'll get every opportunity to begin the year in the rotation. 

Let's see.......... in spring training you are facing a lot of minor league players. It's good to know you have a major league pitcher that can get minor league hitters out. We've seen how well he fares against big league hitters and it's not all that good. Sure he will likely have a good spring and win a spot in the rotation. I prefer to base my opinions on games played during the summer and last year he started 6 games, went 1-7 overall and had an ERA over 7. Matt Shoemaker wasn't much worse and he is gone, thank you.

I still think the Twins need to use some of their "trade" ammunition to acquire at least ONE solid front line SP, someone like a Frankie Montas.  I don't want to give away Luis Arraez, but I want Miranda to get the opportunity to fill his role.  That makes Arraez a prime trade candidate for me.  I don't want to really give up on Larnach, but to get a pitcher the caliber of Montas and with already having Kepler, one of Larnach or Kepler should be a part of the trade.  Does anybody REALLY think if we use most or all of our 12 or so minor league pitchers (who are talented but may not be ready) that we won't have 1 or 2 do alright and be looking at an epic disaster with the rest ?  You just don't keep getting blackjack after blackjack.  There are times you're going to "bust" and MOST of these young pitchers are probably going to struggle.  Maybe Balazovic is up by June 1st and he's pretty good.  Maybe Duran or Strotman helps fortify the pen.  But to expect 5 or 6 of these young guns to take the league by storm is a recipe for disaster.  

Should they offer Martin and Woods-Richardson for two years of Montas? It would essentially be an exchange of Berrios for Montas where the Twins gave up the last two months of 2021 in exchange for all of 2023. I would do it but I wonder if the A’s will get a better offer.

I certainly hope Dobnak can return to 2020 form if he gets some stability in his role.  I was so excited when I heard about his progress in early ‘21 spring training.  Too early to write him off; he has some nasty stuff if he is set up for success.  Between Pineda and Maeda injuries it forced so many guys into unfamiliar roles and unfortunately many didn’t seem to adapt and step up when given the chance. 

On 12/29/2021 at 12:07 AM, Whitey333 said:

Twins had an awful pitching staff in 2021 finishing near the bottom in most categories.  As of now all they have done is to add a pitcher that had an era of over 6.  We better hope a couple of those pitching prospects pan out.  If not it will be a very long losing season again.

Unfortunately I think preparing for a long, losing season is most likely the thing to do. Hopefully we will have an idea who fits where by the end of it though. Watch to see who has the stuff and not necessarily for the wins.

On 12/29/2021 at 5:59 AM, The Mad King said:

I'm wondering what we can realistically expect from Ryan. I suspect we're all expecting too much...

We are expecting too much, but where else can our expectations be placed when it comes to the rotation. For now he is likely our Opening Day starter and is also likely to start against other teams' aces.

What about Carlos Rodon? Sure he gets injured a lot but he is also the kind of guy you could sign for a year and he would put up an under 3 ERA. Also Bundy was a great pick up and he could really help us out. I think a trade for Sean Manea could do Wonders as well. If we traded Arraez and Rooker to the A's for Manea and a little cash we could come out on Top he is another guy who we could get for a good price and could produce. He has a Career Era. under 4 and a Career WHIP of 1.20 which is outstanding for a pitcher like him and he is only 29 so we could get at least 3 good years out of him.