Supfin99

No way I would trade him now. Saying he has a 4 ERA is a little misleading. He’s been a sub 4 ERA pitcher in all 3 of his full seasons with an ERA + of 112 to 122. Only 2 outliers were his 1st year getting his feet wet and last season. His career stats are skewed somewhat by a very rough beginning to his career. I’d rather have a proven sub 4 guy that only never misses a start for the season and 2 thirds. We can still get a draft pick for him then. Twins are going to contend this season and next and will need a pitcher like Berrios.

There is still plenty of time to make moves. I like that the Twins are waiting out the market. Especially in the bullpen where year to year performance is so hard to predict. I believe there is a very good chance that teams that struck early like Mets for May and White Sox for Hendricks and Astros for Báez are going to be very disappointed when they see what’s other quality relievers end up settling for in early Feb. My prediction right now is that the Twins get 2 guys who perform better than May in 21 for about half of what he will be paid.

The WAR from their relievers comes 90% from Hendricks. I wrote an article about this yesterday. Yes Hendricks is worth about 1.5 WAR more than Colome but the games are still played. Last year the White Sox were perfect in games that Colome pitched, meaning that Colome never was responsible for a loss. The 3 games they lost when Colome pitched, 2 were in extra innings where Colome pitched a perfect 9th to send it to extras. Hendricks peripherals may give them a higher WAR but it is hard to better than perfect as far as actual wins and losses.

So ESPN and Jeff Passan just published an article saying the White Sox are the team to beat now in the American League. He feels that way now due to them signing Hendricks. Now Hendricks is a very good reliever and might be the best closer in all of baseball. But how much better did he actually make them? If the White Sox had a bullpen like the Phillies last year and still only last out to us by 1 game I might buy all this hype but they didn’t. Alex Colomé pitched great as a closer last year and that is who Hendricks is replacing. Last year Colomé pitched in 21 games in the regular season and the White Sox went 18-3 in those games with Colomé saving 12 of those wins and having no losses. Of the 3 team losses, 2 were in extra innings where Colomé pitched a shutout ninth to get the games into extras. How much better could anyone have pitched in the closer position for the White Sox last year? They couldn’t have because Colomé was not responsible for the losing runs scored in any of the 21 games he pitched in. I know that Hendricks peripheral numbers were all better than Colomé but at the end of the day it is still about wins and losses. How much can Hendricks really improve them when Colomé was basically perfect last year from a win loss standpoint? Are the White Sox a definite challenger for the AL Central? Absolutely they are. Are they the favorite for the AL? Maybe, but not because they just signed the best closer in the baseball. They already received “perfect” production from the closer position last season and all they can do is go down from there.

I just read the ESPN article about possible super teams or teams that will win 100 games. The locks listed were the Yankees, Astros and Dodgers. In the American League the Rays were the teams listed as the Prime Contender and the wild cards were the Twins and the Angels. The fact that we were listed with the Angels, a team that won 72 games last year, is a story for anther post. The question on the Twins was"if their pitching works out". Last time I checked we won 101 games last year and I don't see how our lineup is not at least as good if not even better this year with Arraez and Buxton for a whole year and Donaldson replacing Cron. So let's discuss our pitching. We have Berrios and Odorizzi back, and I will discuss them in greater detail shortly. The next players that pitched the most innings were Kyle Gibson, Martin Perez and Michael Pineda. Pineda will miss almost exactly a quarter of the season but has a good chance of matching last years innings total of 149 or at least coming close. Big Mike also gets to pitch only in the warmer months which seemed to be his best part of last season. So the staff comparison really comes down to replacing Gibson and Perez. Those 2 combined to make 58 starts and pitch 325 innings last year. Gibson had a 5.12 ERA and Perez had 4.84. They both had WHIP around 1.5. That is what we are replacing. That is not exactly Koufax and Drysdale. Even if the Maeda trade falls thru the leading candidates to replace those 2 are Homer Bailey, Randy Dobnak, Devin Smeltzer and Lewis Thorpe. For Dobnak, Smeltzer and Thorpe their respective ERA's were 1.59, 3.86 and 6.18. Both Dobnaks and Thorpes ERA's were a little misleading. The respective FIP for those 3 was 2.90, 4.58 and 3.47. For comparison sake Gibson and Perez came in at 4.26 and 4.66. Thorpe takes a huge jump due to his excellent SO totals and an unsustainable .438 BABIP. Where is this huge drop-off that would cause our win total to plummet? If anything it looks like we would be slightly better if those 3 combined to eat up the innings pitched by Perez and Gibson. Homer Bailey pitched decent last year after 4 years of not pitching much or well. His 163 IP was the most he had managed since 2013. It was his 1st time with an ERA below 5.5 since 2014. Martin Perez was coming off a similar 2018 in which he didn't much but when he did he was terrible. If Bailey can repeat his 2019, his numbers across the board would be better than what Perez was able to do last season. However you look at the candidates at the back end of the rotation I don't see how you can make any sensible argument that we are worse off then we were last year at this time. Knowing now what we received from Gibson and Perez and seeing what the peripherals were for the candidates to replace them, it would be hard to not acknowledge that we are at least as well off going into this season if not actually in a better position than last year. Now let's look at Jose Berrios. I think he will continue his improvement and will climb to be one of the top 20 pitchers in baseball. Last year Jose's overall numbers took a slight downturn from his previous season even though his ERA ended up slightly lower. His H/9 and K/9 were both slightly better in 2018. But a big reason for this very slight downturn we due to a very bad 6 game stretch in Aug and the 1st week of Sept. His numbers during that 6 game stretch were truly awful. 6 G 31.1 IP 47 H 29 R 15 BB 36 SO 8 HR Those numbers equate to averages of 8.33 ERA 13.5 H/9 4.31 BB/9 10.35 K/9 1.98 WHIP 2.31 HR/9 His number in his other 26 starts were ACE level performance 26 G 169 IP 147 H 53 R 36 BB 159 SO 18 HR This lead to averages of 2.82 ERA 7.72 H/9 1.91 BB/9 8.46 K/9 1.07 WHIP 0.96 HR/9 So before Aug 1 Berrios was having a season that would have put him among the very best pitchers in baseball and would have definitely garnered him Cy Young votes. Now I know you can't cherry pick numbers and every start counts. But I do think that Berrios had a bad stretch that somewhat misleadingly brought down the rest of his numbers. This was a time when maybe his arm was tired, or he had a little bit of a confidence crisis or maybe just some bad luck. Could have been a mixture of all 3. I love Berrios' work ethic and I feel certain he sent this entire offseason working towards finding a solution for his late season fade. It really is the last step for him to becoming a truly elite pitcher. He may not be the ace of a Verlander or Cole level, but who is. There are maybe 5 pitchers in all of baseball who are at that level. Where Berrios can slide into is the next tier of the top 20 pitchers in baseball. Not sure what everyone else's definition of ace is but I think top 20 is pretty close. If we do acquire Maeda, it isn't even comparable to last season. He would immediately be a vast improvement over Gibson and Perez.

At what cost though? Also what are the chances that Graterol or Balazovic becomes a 1 or a 2? Or Cole Sands or Blayne Emlow or Jhoan Duran? All 5 of these guys have either pitched in AA or will this year. That means they are closet being in the majors. At least on and most likely 2 of these guys will have to be included to get a top of the rotation starter. This team is built to contend for easily the next 3 to 4 years with the current crop plus Kiriloff, Lewis, Larnach, Rooker and company are close to making their debuts. I'd rather keep all my pitching prospects for another year and see where we are. Graterol and Balazovic could be pitching in our rotation come July of this season.

Hey Jeremy this is by far the best blueprint I have seen. Contract for Wheeler makes sense, he’s the FA pitcher I want the most. Might be a little low on the annual salaries to get some of these guys to sign Like Odorizzi, Wheeler and Rogers but we will see.

Or another way to look at this season is that the Twins have starters age 27 or younger at all 3 outfield spots, 3B, SS, 2B and C. They a 2 time All-Star pitcher that is 25. They have 1 of the best relievers in baseball with 3 years left of team control. They have top prospects coming up in OF/1B (Rooker, Kirilloff, Raley), SS/2B (Lewis, Gordon), C (Rortvedt, Jeffers), Starters (Graterol, Duran, Colina, Gonsalves, Ober, Balazovic, Sands). Everyone of these players has played at least at AA except for Balazovic who has spent most of the year at High A and will most likely start next season at AA. I don’t think the window is closing real soon.

I have tickets available for tomorrow’s game against Royals. 4cseats in sec 120.

Only 3. 5 hours to game time. I don't want the tickets to go unused. If you want to go to the game tonight let me know.

Hey everyone I just bought 4 season tickets for 20 games the rest of the season. I live in Dallas and will be going to just a few games when we come home and I will give some away to friends and family. I also want to use some of the games to raise money for a cause I feel strongly about, as former military, the Wounded Warriors Project. I’m hopeful that we will auction off tickets to raise money for WWP. The first game I have available is for tonight. I am still working out the logistics of doing an auction on Twins Daily with Seth and the gang so tonight will be on the honor system. If anyone knows a veteran or would be willing to donate $100 to WWP the tickets are yours. Just respond in the comments and I will send you the tickets. My seats for tonight’s game are Section 107, row 7 seats 11 thru 14. They are really nice seats. Please take photos of you at the game and post to Twins Daily. I really want to raise awareness for the 1st auction. The link for making a donation https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org/Default.aspx?tsid=10043

I’m guessing we will hear shortly that Steer and to some extent Gray signed for below slot. Then the Twins will use that extra money to grab a few guys who slip. Then some of the Twins fans who can’t help but see the sky falling can take a breath.

First let me say I realize that this article will probably disappoint most fans because I am going to list out all of the internal options the Twins have versus trading away prospects. One of the biggest reason I feel this way is that for all the groaning I read in the comments section about our bullpen, it has been really good for a vast majority of the time. Some of the fungible pieces that the Twins have rotated thru the bottom of the bullpen such as Austin Adams, Chase DeJong and Andrew Vasquez have given up a lot of runs. Those 3 alone have given up 12 runs in only 3.2 innings. Taking just those 3 out gives the bullpen a 3.59 ERA. The top10 pieces in the bullpen which I list as B Parker, T Rogers, T May, R Harper, M Magill, M Morin, T Duffey, F Romero, T Hildenberger and Z Littell have combined for an ERA 2.92 of over 130.1 innings. They have allowed 119 hits and 40 walks for a whip of 1.22 and struck out 133. Those are all excellent numbers. It shows we don't need to rush into a deal and give away prospects for relievers. Reason number 2 is my list below. These are all internal options who should be given a chance. 1. Cody Stashak Cody is domination AA right now and is deserving of a promotion to AAA any day. He has 35Ks against just 3 walks in 23 innings and only has allowed 14 hits. Cody basically pitched the entire season last year in AA also with excellent numbers. He's ready for AAA and could soon be ready for the majors. The prospect handbook says his FB sits in low 90s with good life and has a good CB and changeup. 2. Kohl Stewart The Twins may have the same idea as me when it comes to trying some of these starters have been decent but not outstanding at AA and AAA and see if they can squeeze just a little better stuff out of them by moving them to the bullpen. Zack Littell came up and looked really good last night. The same could happen for Stewart. Stewart numbers have been OK as a starter at AAA, 71.1 IP between last year and this with an ERA of 4.13 on 75 hits allowed and 28 BB. His K/9 is 7.95. His FB sits in low 90's but he can hit 96,97. Only having to pitch an inning or 2 should allow those upper 90's FB to become more consistent. 3. Lewis Thorpe Thorpedo has looked very good in his last 3 outings. In his last 16 innings he's given up 5 runs on 15 hits with while his K/BB is 19 to 1. His FB sits 92-94 but he could also get a bump by moving to BP. He also would provide a second lefty. 4. Brusdar Graterol I think there is a very good reason that the Twins are limiting his IP so far this year. In looking at the boxscores it looks like Graterol has been on an 80 pitch limit in games. This has limited his IP to an average of 5 per game. I think the Twins have every intention of Graterol pitching at Target Field later this season. That could be in a 5th starter role to replace Pineda or replacing someone that is injured. Or he could take the Johan Santana route and get his feet wet in big leagues as a reliever. Out of the bullpen Graterol would most likely sit at 99/100. His changeup and slider are good pitches. He would be a dynamic weapon out of the pen in Sept and Oct. We know speed plays up when the weather turns cold in Oct. I doubt it is fun to hit a 100MPH FB when it is 45 degrees in Minneapolis in Oct. There are other starters who this might work for such as Jorge Alcala and Devin Smeltzer. A few other relievers who might be options are Jovani Moran, Tom Hackimer, who has been lights out this year and was recently promoted to AA and Jake Reed. Moving a few of these starters to the bullpen for a playoff run is not a permanent switch. I absolutely Brusdar starting games next season but if he can help us compete in the playoffs this season by pitching out of the pen I am all for it. With all of these options I would love too see a few of them get a shot before we start shipping out prospects to rent a reliever. With all of this said I am still absolutely hoping the Twins sign Kimbrel. Not just make a run but outbid everyone for his services. After next weekend it costs us nothing but money. Even if you have to go 3 years and almost 60 mil it is worth it. The Twins have very little salary on the books in the next 3 years. They can absolutely afford to pay Kimbrel 18 mil a year for the next 3 seasons and still make a run at Gerrit Cole in the offseason.