Washington and the ex-Twins factor

The Washington Nationals made short work of the NLCS, sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals so emphatically -- the Cardinals never had a lead in any game -- that they didn't have to pull their starters-as-relievers bullpen gimmick.

And so Brian Dozier, Kurt Suzuki and Fernando Rodney, three ex-Twins of varying tenure, are going to the World Series. As is Anibal Sanchez, who was in spring training with the Twins as a non-roster invitee in 2018 and was released when the Twins signed Lance Lynn. Since then Sanchez has pitched more than 300 innings with an ERA of  3.39. (He pitched more innings this year as the Nationals' fourth starter than Jake Odorizzi worked for the Twins.)

We can call Sanchez an ex-Twin, or decide that a few weeks in spring training doesn't count -- but he certainly qualifies as one who got away.

As for the others:

Dozier, now 32, had the lion's share of playing time at second base for the Nats and bopped 20 homers, but Howie Kendrick has pretty much taken over the position in the postseason. He was a bench piece for the Dodgers in last year's World Series also.

Suzuki, now 36, essentially splits the catching chores with former Indians backstop Yan Gomes. Gomes is the better receiver, Suzuki the better bat. I frankly thought Suzuki was pretty much done when his Twins tenure ended, but playing a little less than half-time has worked well for him the pst three seasons. Uniquely among the Nats' ex-Twins, he's signed through next season.

Rodney, now 42, is one of the bullpen pieces the Nationals seek diligently to avoid using in key moments. The Nats picked him up after the A's released him; he pitched in 38 games for Washington with an ERA of 4..05, which is considerably better than the 9.42 he had with Oakland.


Their roles are smaller than they were with the Twins, and their time remaining in the majors is dwindling. But if this is it for Dozier and Rodney, they're going out on a big platform.

Which way the wind blows

Phil Hughes and Anibal Sanchez -- two of the three rotation candidates I recently grouped together as "Tier One" -- each gave up homers in their appearances during the weekend.

Hughes actually surrendered two, Sanchez one. But one big difference was that in Hughes's case, the wind was blowing out; for Sanchez, the wind was blowing in.

Many factors mess with spring training numbers, and this is one of less obvious ones. I've been to enough games at Fort Myers to know that it's windy. When the wind is blowing in at Hammond Stadium, it takes a lot to hit one out.

Judging from the radio descriptions, Hughes was pitching in the reverse situation. The wind was adding distance to fly balls.

It's far too early to reach a final evaluation on any of them anyway. But it's worth remembering that the stat sheet does not reveal everything worth considering.

One trip through

Trying to discern anything out of one baseball game is foolish. Trying to discern anything out of the first week of spring training games is just as foolish.

So I'm a fool, and what else is new?

Aaron Slegers and Stephen Gonsalves -- who are both more likely to open 2018 in the rotation of Triple A Rochester than in the Minnesota rotation -- on Wednesday became the first Twins hurlers to start twice this exhibition season.

Three observations from the first trip through the "rotation":

* Only Jose Berrios struggled. The Twins' most talented starter threw a scoreless inning but exhausted his 30-pitch allotment and didn't come out for a second frame.

* Anibal Sanchez didn't start, but he did work a pair of innings, throwing mostly offspeed stuff. The usual spring training pattern, especially for a veteran, is to spend the first outing testing fastball command. But the idea behind the Sanchez signing is to break his conventional pattern of pitching. He's on a non-guaranteed deal, and he needs to impress.

* Phil Hughes was not only effective in his start, he showed a bit more velocity than he did last season. Question: is there another velo uptick ahead as the spring moves on? Hughes is in a slightly different situation than Sanchez; his contract is guaranteed. But his role is not. If he's going to be in the rotation, he too needs to impress.

We are told that Paul Molitor plans to go with four starters to open the season, with the expectation/hope that Ervin Santana will be ready to roll when he needs to go deeper. We expect that the first three starters will be, in some order, Berrios, Jake Odorizzi and Kyle Gibson.

That leaves one slot, and a lot of candidates. "Tier One" candidates, as I see it, are Hughes, Sanchez and Aldaberto Mejia. "Tier Two" would include Slegers, Gonsalves and, apparently, Tyler Duffey, although I would prefer Duffey in a multi-inning bullpen role.

Nothing that happened the first time through hurt any of the Tier One candidates. The Tier Two guys haven't hurt themselves either, but they need not only to impress themselves but have the Tier One guys stumble.

Contemplating Anibel Sanchez

The Anibal Sanchez signing, criticized here when the news broke last week, became official Tuesday. (For the record, the Twins opened spots on the 40-man roster by putting Michael Pineda and Trevor May on the 60-day DL. In the past teams had to wait until cusp of the regular season to make that move, but neither was going to pitch in April or early May anyway.)

The Twins are describing their addition of Sanchez as "analytics driven." This makes me feel a little guilty, or at least discombobulated, rapping his signing. I've been waiting years to see the Twins employ sabermetrics in forming their roster, and when they do all I can do is gripe.

So the question is, what numbers suggest that a pitcher with an ERA over the past three seasons of 5.67 is usable in a major league rotation?

To begin with, his walk rate is still quite good (over that same three-season span, 2.8 walks per nine innings) and his strikeout rate is respectable (8.2 K/9 in 2015-17; his K rate last season, 8.9, was better than that of any of the six most-used Twins starters). Those "leading indicator" stats are encouraging.

Then there is the notion that changing Sanchez' pitch selection can make him more effective. From Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com:

Opposing batters hit just .125 with a .188 slugging percentage against his splitter last season, but .337 with a .579 slugging percentage against his fastball, per Statcast.

There's a deceptively simple formula implied there: Stop throwing the fastball, throw more splitters.

I say deceptively because pitch selection isn't done in a vacuum.  Pehaps the splitter has been so overwhelmingly effective because the hitters are waiting for the very hittable fastball. Scratch the fastball, the hitters will start looking for the off-speed, and ... suddenly the splitter/change isn't so overwhelming. (Plus there is more stress on the forearm in particular with the splitter.)

Last year, according to the Bill James Handbook, Sanchez threw 49 percent fastballs, 21 percent changeup (his splitter), 12 percent sliders, 10 percent curves and 9 percent cutters. (I can hear Bert Blyleven now: "He throws all five pitches.") That's already a fairly low fast-ball usage rate, and a fairly high rate of off-speed stuff. How low (and high) can he go? It appears the Twins want to find out.

Around the Division: Detroit Tigers

The Tigers traded for Anibal Sanchez in midseason.
He went 4-6, 3.74 in the regular season and 1-2, 1.77
in the postseason.

As has been the case in recent years, the Detroit Tigers have spent some serious money this offseason.

Torii Hunter, cast loose by the Angels, landed in the D last month on a two-year, $26 million deal. While the erstwhile Twin has been better in his 30s than I expected, that's a pretty fat salary for a 37-year-old outfielder.

And last week the Tigers outbid the Cubs for the services of pitcher Anibal Sanchez. If the Hunter salary seemed generous, Sanchez' is something closer to excessive: six years, $80 million. For a guy with two winning seasons out of seven, who has never pitched 200 (regular season) innings, who figures to be the fourth man in the rotation.

Sanchez is talented, but the results have never matched the talent.

The signing leaves the Tigers with six starters for their rotation. The odd man out figures to be Rick Porcello, whose pitch-to-contact style is less than a perfect fit with the Tigers' porous infield defense. Drew Smyly, a left-hander, gets strikeouts. And the Tigers could use a southpaw in the rotation.

So Porcello is likely to be peddled, and some early speculation has linked him to the Angels (for an outfielder) and Pirates (for a closer). I wouldn't be stunned if his destination turned out to be the Cubs in a deal involving Alfonso Soriano. This Detroit blog post even mentions the Twins as a potential trading partner, although I don't think that's likely.

Anyway, the Tigers have won the last two AL Central titles and seem well positioned for a third, even if their infield is regularly mystified by the process of turning a double play. They have the best rotation in the division, maybe the best in baseball -- if Porcello is traded to the Twins, he'd be their most logical Opening Day starter -- they have some hammers in the middle of the lineup; they have some heat in the bullpen; and they've improved the outfield defense.

I have a post in the works on how local cable revenues are fueling the overall increase in free-agent pay and how that leaves the Twins lagging, but in the case of the Tigers, it's not TV money getting spent. It's that Mike Ilitch is 83 and worth some $2.7 billion (according to Forbes), and he's decided that he'd rather die with a World Series parade than with $2.7 billion.

What happens to that "business model" when Ilitch does die and his heirs get to decide if they want to continue to divert resources to a vanity investment is a fair question -- and one that will be answered at some future date.