Twins Minor League Report (8/26): Jose, We Can See.

Not worried about Kepler. Hasn't been striking out at all. Just bad luck and his Babip coming a little back to earth. I do agree that the bullpen is probably the best route for Berrios. Keeps his innings down while still allowing him to contribute.

Number of innings is not the issue for Berrios. If he pitches stressful innings as a reliever, it will endanger his arm more than starter innings.

I think he should be pitch VERY few innings, until (and if) the Twins make the playoffs, then he can be used in the playoffs.

Congrats to ABW II on becoming the Chattanooga Lookouts Home Run Record Holder in a season.  Also a shout out on becoming the first minor leaguer to 100 RBI for the 2nd time in the last 3 years.  29 & 100 - 

http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/5939315?wpid=10957 …

Video of Record of HR

Berrios is so studly.

I know it's been saiid here, but anyone know the typical innings increases for starting pitchers?  15% 20%?

The study looked at injury rates based on the number of innings pitched and five levels of yearly increases ranging from 10 to 50 innings. A year-over-year increase of 30 innings pitched is often used as the limit for the number of innings a young starting pitcher is allowed to pitch in any given season. The researchers found no consistent correlation between injuries and the number of innings pitched or rate of yearly increase"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150406121354.htm

I hate to be the naysayer here but it would be insane to add Berrios this year and lose his age 29 year on the back end.  He's an elite talent and a potential #1 starter - 1 more year in the Buxton/Sano prime would be way more valuable than 15-20 innings in the pen down the stretch (i don't see who the Twins would be willing to replace in the rotation and there's the matter of innings).

It would be different if the Twins were competing for the division title with a full playoff series - you would be thinking more World Series and Berrios could help.  But this is a team that is playing for a chance in the wild card game. It's agonizingly hard not to use him because we want the playoffs so badly but we've got to be smart about this. A full season of Berrios at 29 (knock on wood he's great) takes priority over 15-20 innings in the pen.

Go Twins!

Stuff like this is only important if the player is marginal or if he struggles and goes up and down.  If he is the pitcher he looks to be Twins will sign him and buy out his last year of arbitration well before his age 29 season. 

Yes but if they have him for another year they can buy out that year of arbitration.  The number of years left matters because he'll hit free agency at some point and he gets much more expensive to sign (and is potentially gone given the Twins distaste for long contracts to pitchers).  To put it in another perspective. how much would you have loved to have one more year of Johan Santana at the end of that contract?  It seems a cart before the horse thing to compare Berrios to Santana but that is the best case scenario we have to consider.

The other key to consider is that the number of years of team control dramatically effects the team's leverage in negotiations.  The Twins are unlikely to make a move to sign Berrios after this year and you've then blown a year of getting to know him.  The later into a player's years of control you wait to make that offer, the more you end up paying and the less likely a player is to include a couple of years of free agency for stability. 

15-20 innings of relief are not worth 180-200 innings of starting plus millions of dollars they could spend in other places.

I generally agree with postponing Free Agency, but the Twins are in a playoff race right now. IF they believe he can help them get there, they can call him up. 

 

I can't think of (any?) many top-notch Twins players that the team hasn't signed to an extension beyond their free agency timeline going back 20 years.

1) How about Brian Dozier?  The Twins just bought out his years of control in order to stabilize costs, they got none of his free agent years.  It was a good deal based on how he's played this year but if they'd had another year of control (or made the move earlier) they might have had the leverage to ( a ) drop the cost per year considerably or ( b ) get him to throw in a year of free agency on the end in order to keep the salaries higher.  Those years may seem like they don't matter but they really really do.  You really want that extra year of control when you're approaching Berrios about a contract in 2 years.  It might mean you save tens of millions of dollars over the contract or get to buy out a year of free agency relatively cheaply.

2) I understand the playoff angle but how much does Berrios help that?  He's not likely to be starting down the stretch and certainly wouldn't be starting the Wild Card game.  Even if you make the Wild Card game (not a given clearly) you then only have roguhly a 50% chance (and likely less as the Twins will not be favored, won't have a shut down pitcher and will be the road team) of making it to a longer ALDS series where a Berrios-type might make a difference.  And that's not even taking into consideration the fact that if the Twins make it that far, they'd already be able to move 1 or 2 starters to the pen.  Is Berrios in the pen that much better than Pelfrey in the pen?  Is that worth a year of team control and the millions of dollars that it could save the Twins?  Heck no.
 

The Twins should let the future be the (near) future and ride the guys who have gotten them where they are.  Only way I'd bring Berrios up is if there were 2 injuries in the starting rotation and they needed him to start (I say 2 because Hughes will be back soon).

Yeah, this. If it's April 1st and you have 162 games in front of you and a competent rotation without Berrios, you consider keeping him down for all of 20 days so you can grab an extra year of service time.

 

If it's September 1st and you're in the middle of a playoff race, you say "to hell with that service year" and assemble the best possible roster in Minnesota.

 

If Berrios struggles, there's nothing preventing the Twins from sending him down in 2016 and getting that extra service year.

I just can't buy that it's that simple.  You don't just assemble the best roster, you need to be calm and make reasonable judgements based on risk vs. benefit.  The Twins are risking a lot (a year of control, millions of dollars and maybe health depending on where you come down on that) for very little benefit (a power arm at the back of the bullpen).  The benefits just don't outweigh the risks, and it's not close.  We're all a little starved of playoff experience these last few years and I get the temptation to push balls to the wall but we aren't the Tigers.  We have a bright future with many years of playoff contention.  We can't risk that future to move the bar 1% towards a chance to play a sudden death Wild Card game.

And if he struggles this is all a moot point but if you believe in this guy like we should and do, you have to plan for him not to struggle.

Health concerns are completely separate from this argument about service time. No matter the situation in Minnesota, if Ryan feels Berrios is hitting a wall, he has to shut him down. Period.

 

At some point, the Twins need to stop worrying about 2022 at the expense of 2015. Like I said, if it's April 1st, yeah, you play Jose in Rochester for 3-4 weeks and then call him up to grab that extra service year because "why not?"

 

But every. win. matters. right now. If Berrios can fill a role and help the Twins squeak out even one more win without bringing up any long-term concerns about his arm, you make that move because one win could be the difference between making the playoffs or missing by a game.

 

And, again, the Twins can send Berrios back down if he struggles in 2016, getting back that extra service year. The vast majority of Twins prospects bounce back and forth a few times before sticking in Minnesota. I hope Berrios isn't one of those guys but I wouldn't bet against it.

 

On top of all that, don't you think Berrios will benefit from learning what it feels like to compete against the best talent in the world in crucial situations during a playoff run?

1) Agreed on health. That was more of a throw-in.

2) I'm doing this more from a "if he doesn't struggle" perspective because if you go from a struggle perspective than you gain nothing from bringing him up now (he struggles) so it's kind of a moot point.  This whole conversation is premised on Berrios being an above average major leaguer with superstar upside.

3) At some point you need to play for 2015 but the million dollar question that we disagree on is "Where is that point?" I just don't think that Berrios helps you enough this year (even if he does get you 1 extra win, which is unlikely in that short of a period of time WAR wise) to justify losing a year of him later. If the Twins were the Royals, I might want to bring him up because a World Series is in the mix and you do everything to way that scale. The Twins are not there.  They have an outside shot at playing in a sudden death game that they will likely not be favored to win in order to get the chance to make the "real" playoffs.  Berrios is unlikely to meaningfully impact that one way or the other so it's not worth the very real cost of a year of service time.*

4) The Twins aren't going to be a flash in the pan, this isn't going to be his only chance to make a playoff run.  He might even benefit from coming up early in the season when expectations and reprecussions aren't so high (though I will say that everything you read on this kid make you think he'd have no issues with the pressure). 

* I feel very differently about Max Kepler coming up.  Get that kid up once minor league playoffs are over. His situation is a bit different because the Twin have an obvious need he can fill (ugh to Shane Robinson and Torii starting games and even with Hicks back, Kepler is an ideal platoon partner) and I think that he's likely to start next year in the minors since Arcia, Buxton, Hicks and Rosario are all likely to make the team (Arcia because of no options).  Thus, he's way more likely to have some time back in the minors to make up for some of that service time.**

** That last part, by the by, is the best argument for bringing up Berrios now.  If you think he'll start next year in the minors, then they can always just hold him down there longer next year and gain back that service time.  I like to think he's going to force his way onto the team next year though.  He's done everything and the upside is so tantalizing.  Hopefully Nolasco goes somehow and we go with Hughes, Santana, Gibson, May and Berrios?   If we kept Nolasco, I'd even favor wasting May in the pen in order to get Berrios a spot to shine.

I think you might be exaggerating Berrios' upside here too.  He could be quite good very soon, but he's probably a #20 range MLB prospect with a career minor league ERA around 3.  He's probably closer to Matt Garza level prospect than elite like Giolito or Urias now, or Strasburg, Price, Felix, etc. in the past.  He could take things to another level eventually, a few guys certainly do, but you can't always hold back assets thinking only of their best-case scenario.

 

That means two things for your argument:

 

1 ) his age-28 FA season probably isn't as unobtainable in a contract extension as you suggest.  Even if does ascend to elite, it might take him a couple years (as it did Pedro Martinez and others).

 

2 ) it probably won't be all that difficult to justify him starting 2016 in the minors for 4-6 weeks.  I doubt he's elite that quickly.  We somehow used Santana and Liriano out of the bullpen for multiple months when they were apparently ready to be elite MLB starters, I am pretty sure we could send Berrios to the minors for a month.  (This might actually be prudent if we want to conserve his innings a bit yet in 2016, with an eye toward possible postseason competition.)

All the more reason to wait on this year. If it takes him awhile to ascend to elite (and you're right, I'm putting cart way before the horse on that one, he may never make it) then the Twins are going to need to wait to see how he develops before committing. As we saw with a later-developing Dozier, that can make it harder to get a good deal since a player is close to free agency. This is all the more reason to wait on Berrios this year and thus have an extra year at the end of team control when he is performing at his peak, not less. 

The service time thing is only part of it. Outside of injuries in the rotation that let him start, he just isn't going to have enough of an impact on this year's race to justify accruing the service time.

This is an argument for aggressively pursuing an extension with a player before they are a mere year away from arbitration, like Dozier was this past winter.

 

We will still have plenty of time to do that with Berrios regardless of when we call him up, unless you think he will immediately pitch like prime Pedro Martinez his first year in MLB (which even Pedro didn't do until his 5th year in MLB).

Yeah but "plenty of time" is vague; the specifics matter.  Having an extra year gets us a better deal and if he does pitch like Pedro and we can't afford him (ala Santana) it gives the Twins an extra year of him playing before he leaves as a free agent or, more likely, is traded like Santana or David Price.  The year of control on the back end is worth so much more than 15-20 innings in the bullpen in pursuit of a wild card.  He doesn't push the needle enough in that role to justify risking losing a year of his prime. 

Now if there is a way to get him into the rotation, I'm all for bringing him up and seeing what he can do.  But I don't see the Twins dropping two of Duffy, Milone, Santana, Gibson, Hughes and Pelfrey.  There's just too much of a log jam ahead of him among the starters.