Good-bye Jepsen, part two

The Twins formally released Kevin Jepsen on Monday, which means they were unable to find a taker for the remains of his $5.31 million contract. Shocking, ain't it?

Meaningless but odd: Last year, in his 28 innings with the Twins, Jepsen had an ERA of 1.61. This year, in 30.2 innings, 6.16. Sixes and ones ... 161616.

I assume somebody will pick up the veteran now that he's a free agent for about a 10th of what the Twins are paying him. He still has his velocity.

Meanwhile, the Twins are deep into a Plan B (or lower) bullpen. Remember, they were going to have a late-inning corps of Glen Perkins, Jepsen, Trevor May and Casey Fien. Perkins is out for the season, Jepsen released, Fien waived to the Dodgers and May sidelined by back and hip issues. If things develop this month as I hope they do, May could (should) transition back into a rotation role.

I certainly never imagined when watching Brandon Kintzler work in Fort Myers that I was watching their future closer. Jepsen leaves with seven saves on the season, which still tops the team stats, but Kintzler has five and will certainly pass Jepsen -- unless he gets traded.

Goodbye, Jepsen (and Hu)

Kevin Jepsen: Walks
up, strikeouts down,
ERA bloated.

The Twins designated Kevin Jepsen for assignment Sunday. We've been through this routine recently with Oswaldo Arcia; the DFA'd player comes off both the 25-man and 40-man rosters immediately but the Twins have 10 days to dispose of the contract.

I have nothing good to say about Jepsen's pitching this season. He was every bit as bad as his 6.16 ERA suggests.  Of course, he was very good last season when the Twins really needed somebody to step up in the late innings.

The Twins twitterverse the past week or so had a number of people bemoaning and second-guessing last year's trade in which the Twins surrendered Chih-Wei Hu and another minor leaguer for Jepsen. At the time I pronounced myself lukewarm about the trade, and by the offseason deemed it the right thing to have done even though the Twins missed the playoffs.

Today it's more difficult to defend the trade. Hu is having a fine season at Double A and is to pitch for the World Game in the Futures Game on Sunday. And Jepsen ... well, the Twins are going to pay him more than $2 million not to pitch for them the rest of the year.

But had the Twins not made that trade, the same people complaining today about giving up Hu would have been complaining last year about the lack of a move. The Twins took a risk in hopes of making the playoffs. Jepsen did what they needed him to do in 2015, and they still missed.

One throw made, one not

Wednesday's was a bad loss for the Twins in many ways. Rain delay at the start, early deficit, rally to take the lead, cough the lead up in the ninth, rally to tie, get the first two on in the 10th and strand both of them ... it all added up to an opportunity to gain on a playoff spot wasted.

There are several plays and players who could be commented on here, but I shall limit myself to two similar plays -- two closers who had to get off the bound, field a soft-hit ball and make a throw to first base. This is an aspect of pitching that seems lost on many power pitchers, and both Bruce Rondon of the Tigers and Kevin Jepsen of the Twins are power pitchers.

Jepsen's play came first. The leadoff batter in the top of the ninth, Victor Martinez, hit a dribbler to the third base side of the mound. V-Mart is one of the slowest runners in the American League -- he's old, he wasn't fast when young, he's a former catcher and he's had knee injuries. But Jepsen reacted to the dribbler as if it were Byron Buxton, or at least Danny Santana, heading to first base. He barehanded the ball and made a spinning, off-balance throw to first.

It's no surprise that he bounced the throw. The wonder is that he didn't heave it down the right field line or into the camera well. I will concede that Joe Mauer probably should have been able to handle the throw anyway, but no official scorer is going to charge the first baseman with an error on a bouncing throw. Martinez was credited with a single, which is a gift to the DH. In my view, Jepsen, confronted with the need to make an unforeseen play, panicked. And that started the two-run ninth.

Rondon had his chance in the bottom of the inning, when Buxton was asked to sacrifice. Unlike Jepsen, Rondon knew ahead of time that he was probably going to have to make a play. Buxton's bunt wasn't great, and Rondon didn't make a great throw -- he lobbed the ball to first, and Buxton made it a closer play than it should have been. But Rondon did get his out, uncomfortable as he appeared in the role.

It has long been my observation that most power pitchers are poor fielders, and it has long been my contention that, aside from the difficulty of bunting fastballs in the upper 90s, forcing such pitchers to get off the mound and make plays would be a fruitful strategy. This applies to both Jepsen and Rondon. But on Wednesday, Rondon made his play. Jepsen didn't.

Blaine Boyer, J.R. Graham, Glen Perkins and a deeper bullpen

The expectation had been that the Twins would wait until September and the expanded rosters to reactivate Blaine Boyer from the disabled list, but on Wednesday Boyer and J.R. Graham traded places.

Graham's injury was announced as "shoulder inflammation," and the cynic/skeptic in me whispers that it's really an inflamed ERA.  Graham can't be readily sent to the minors because he's a Rule 5 guy, and he last had an appearance in which he (a) got at least one out (b) without allowing a run a month ago. Literally, July 26, against the Yankees. (In fairness, I should add that Graham had a major shoulder problem a couple of years ago, and there is good reason to be cautious if he does indeed have an issue.)

Now he's sidelined for two weeks, and the Twins can easily meet the requirements to hold Graham's rights while not having the problem of carrying a relief pitcher they don't want to use in key situations.

Boyer immediately wound up working two innings Wednesday night as the Twins pushed their winning streak to six. This took his ERA down to 2.86, and I'm quite comfortable with asserting that this has been the best season of his nine in the majors.

Paul Molitor had Boyer handle the seventh and eighth innings, but that doesn't figure to be his standard role at this point. Wednesday's usage was more about trying to give Casey Fien and Trevor May a day off, and, perhaps, about Kevin Jepsen filling in as closer for Glen Perkins.

The latter is again a matter of concern. Apparently Perkins, who had been trying to pitch with a bad disc in his neck, is now having back spasms. I've had enough back issues myself over the years to suspect that the two issues are related.

Taking Perkins out certainly thins the bullpen, but it also has to be said: The acquisition of Jepsen (and to a lesser extent Neal Cotts), plus the shift of May to relief work, has really deepened the relief corps. A month ago the bullpen was a serious problem. Today it isn't, and kudos to Terry Ryan and Co. for a midstream repair job.

Hello, Jepsen; good-bye, Hu

Chih-Wei Hu with Cedar Rapids in
2014. 

The Twins did make a bullpen trade Friday afternoon: Kevin Jepsen from Tampa Bay for two minor league pitchers, Chih-Wei Hu and Alexis Tapia.

The trade addresses the biggest need on the roster. I'm lukewarm on it only because I had already developed an emotional investment in Hu, who I saw last summer in his full-season league debut in Cedar Rapids. Having been impressed by him before I ever read a scouting report gives me a sense of discovery. (Tapia is a Venezuelan pitching at Elizabethton; I don't know enough about him to say anything beyond: He's a 19-year-old arm in Rookie ball, and good luck with that.)

But really, I cannot complain about this deal. Jepsen isn't a big name, but he does fill an immediate need: He's a power arm who has pitched in late innings for the Angels and the Rays. This is the kind of trade I said Friday morning I was looking for.

Kevin Jepsen, 31,
has a 2.81 ERA with
the Rays this season.

Hu, 21, has a chance to be a major league starting pitcher. He has four average pitches with good command of each. He was, to my self-trained eye last summer, much more polished than the higher-bonused high draft picks who started the day before and the day after, Ryan Eades and Kohl Stewart. Personally, I would rather have Hu than Eades; perhaps the Twins or Rays agree, perhaps they don't. They agreed on Hu.

Having praised Hu, I have a hard time seeing where he would fit in a future Twins rotation. As matters stand, the Twins have seven big-league starters (counting Trevor May in the bullpen and Ricky Nolasco on the disabled list). Of those seven, only Mike Pelfrey is not under team control for not just 2016 but 2017. Plus the Twins have Jose Berrios and Tyler Duffey pushing at the door from Triple A. Even at the High-A level where Hu's been so effective this year, the Twins have a bunch of starting prospects -- Eades, Stewart, Stephen Gonsalves, Tyler Jay, Aaron Slegers, Mat Batts -- who certainly aren't markedly worse pitchers than Hu and most of whom got bigger bonuses when they signed.

I'm not eager to give up Hu. But this deal helps the chances of the 2015 team snagging that wild card berth, and it doesn't do obvious damage to the long-term outlook.

Later on Friday, the Twins demoted both Danny Santana and Jorge Polanco, a pair of moves that opened roster slots for Jepsen and Trevor Plouffe, back after the birth of his son Teddy. I'll probably use the Monday print column to comment on that.