Guardians 5, Twins 3: We've Seen This Ending Before

https://www.draysbay.com/2021/10/7/22703079/tampa-bay-rays-story-of-modern-baseball-power-starters-middle-relief-aces-collin-mchugh

1400 plus innings need to be covered in a season.

Workloads are managed. Young pitchers are not going to go from 100 innings to 200 innings from one year to the next. Pitchers coming off major injury are not going to throw 200 innings upon return. The pitchers who are left that can throw 200 effective innings? A handful and they are going to sign with the Yankees or Dodgers. 

We all know this. 

Now do the math.

You can't look at a bullpen or starters like you looked at them in the 80's. If you do... you will just continue to scream at a bus stop when the bus is long gone and not coming back.

Bullpen guys need to throw multiple innings and bad bullpen arms can't be hidden. 

10 hours ago, USAFChief said:

We'd all like 20 year old Bert Blyleven to show up and throw 280 innings with a sub-3 ERA. But that's not happening. 

In a general sense, I think the Twins have clearly decided that since they don't have and can't afford 200+ inning starters who can get people out the 3rd time through the order, they can get close to that level of run prevention from weaker starters if they just limit the exposure of those starters. Twice through the order and start looking for a convenient spot to take him out. It's actually been fairly successful. 

However...the companion to fewer and fewer innings from starters HAS to be a stronger, deeper bullpen. There are no low leverage guys, no room for "long relief" which nobody uses any more anyway because if someone is good enough for 3 or 4 inning stretches they'd be in the rotation, and using up a pen spot on a guy who's only available every 4th or 5th day is hard to work around when you need 3 guys minimum every night. And just like shortening starts gives lesser starters a chance to keep runs down, 1 inning stints from your relievers is clearly the way to maximize their effectiveness. So that's what everyone does.

And again in general, I like that Baldelli generally takes starters out BEFORE they cough up a big inning rather than after (like Molitor was apt to do). In specifically this game, there is zero reason he should have asked for more from Archer. I'd argue he shouldn't have come out for the 4th, and wouldn't have if the pen wasn't so spent. In that  sense Baldelli actually DID get an "extra inning" from Archer.

The question you have to ask as far as yesterday goes, is do you trust another inning of archer less than you trust an inning of thornburg? 

58 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

He started Tuesday. He would have been available until around Sunday. He has a few rehab innings in AAA since his return from the injury list. Rehab innings are not meaningless.

They may well use Winder in the pen but his best use this week was starting the double header game.

You have to fix the issue in the immediate short term and longer term. 

In the short term... Calling Winder back to the big club is absolutely a solution that could also help longer term. 

The searching shouldn't stop there. ? 

The average start in the majors has been under 6 innings for a few years now.  People screaming the starters need to average more than 5 or 6 just aren't paying attention to all of the other teams. 

2 hours ago, jkcarew said:

The Twins are well under league average this year.  2, 3 more outs hear and there would be huge as we’ve seen. Given the bullpen investment (lack thereof) and resulting lack of depth, along with the relative success of the starting staff, it would seem smart to try to push starters a little more aggressively. Doesn’t mean it will work.

Which has nothing to do with insisting good pitching staffs should average 6 or 7 innings.