Notes, quotes and comment

Trevor May, rehabbing from last spring's Tommy John surgery, apparently ran out of time on his rehab assignment. On Thursday the Twins essentially swapped him and Jason Castro's roster status -- Castro went on the 60-day DL and May came off -- and optioned May to Triple A.

May's rehab is officially complete, but he's not ready for the majors yet. He appeared in six minor league games, four of them starts, on two levels during his rehab assignment, and struck out 20 hitters in 18 innings. He also walked 12, which tells us a lot about where he's at. 

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Pedro Martinez is a hellva comp for any young pitcher, but last night, as MLB Network was showing highlights of Jose Berrios' complete game earlier in the day, the Hall of Famer said: He reminds me of me as a young pitcher.

I can see that in a few ways -- short righties with a big fastball and imposing breaking stuff. What ultimately made Martinez great was his complete mastery of the changeup. Few power pitchers develop that pitch as well as Martinez did. It's no insult to Berrios to observe that his change isn't nearly as effective.

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I listened briefly to the Twins radio broadcast while walking the dog and turned it off during a Dan Gladden rant against analytics that booth visitor Tim Laudner was subtly encouraging. First Gladden complained that the Twins based some draft picks more heavily on analytics than on eyeball scouting. Then he said he'd like to see a team turn its baseball ops over to old school guys. Laudner agreed, at which point I turned it off.

The old-school had its run. Its time as expired. We've seen what happens to old-school GMs in the era of analytics. Ruben Amaro Jr in Philadelphia. Tony LaRussa-Dave Stewart in Arizona. Terry Ryan in Minnesota. They get beat, and they get fired. Deliberate, defiant ignorance is a losing strategy.

I doubt that when Gladden needs a physician he seeks one who figures that everything he needs to know was known in John McGraw's era, or even Branch Rickey's.