The return of Pineda

The Twins and suspended starter Michael Pineda have agreed on a two-year contract. I approve.

Presuming the oversized righty passes his physical, the Twins have accounted for three of their five rotation slots, although Pineda will have to sit the first five weeks or so of the 2020 season to finish his suspension for a drug-testing violation.

The 2019 Twins had a remarkably stable rotation, but they entered the offseason with four vacancies. Two of the four free-agents are back, and they are the two best of the four, Pineda and Jake Odorizzi.

Somebody said on Twitter last night that the fan base would be more excited about Odorizzi and Pineda if they were coming from outside. Since they were here in 2019, they don't have the appeal of a new bright shiny object. But we've seen them be effective. But I'd rather have either of them than Zack Wheeler, who the Twins reportedly had as a top priority but who is going to be a Phillie.

Meanwhile the speculation about Madison Bumgarner continues. The longtime Giants ace was widely expected to be the next prominent free-agent starter to pick a suitor, and the Twins are prominently connected with him. I'm lukewarm on the sjbject, in large part because I think people see that name and think of the postseason stud of the first half of the decade. Those years are past. Bumgarner would still help this rotation, but he's no longer the Cooperstown-caliber ace of those three San Francisco championship teams.

Pineda, Smeltzer, Polanco

Michael Pineda came off the injured list and threw five innings Thursday. His first four innings were really good. His fifth was better than it looked. He was charged with three earned runs, but that's because the scoring rules say you can't assume the double play.

Jorge Polanco's throwing error, on that basis, cost the Twins bases but not an out. The reality is, if he makes an on-target throw, Pineda gets out of the fifth allowing just the lead off homer. Maybe he would have gotten the ball to at least start the sixth in that case, maybe not. He struggled to get his fourth out of the fifth and there wasn't any question that he was done after five.

That makes four errors in three games for Polanco -- two muffed catches, two errant throws. At least three of them have come on potential double plays. He really needs to clean it up.

Devin Smeltzer mopped up -- four innings, three earned runs and a save in a game in which he never had less than a six or seven run lead. The scoring rules say a pitcher who finishes a win with three or more innings holding a lead of any size gets a save. That sounds goofy, but Smeltzer at least saved the rest of the bullpen.

He becomes, incidentally, the eighth Twin credited with a save this season. I tried off the top of my head to list the eight during my midnight walk home after work and missed one. The eight: Taylor Rogers (18), Blake Parker (10), Sergio Romo (2), Ryne Harper (1), Mike Morin (1), Trevor May (1), Trevor Hildenberger (1), and Smeltzer (1).

Parker and Morin are both with the Phillies now, and Hildenberger and Smeltzer, with his immediate demotion after throwing 68 pitches, are in the minors.

The good and the bad

The Twins swept the Kansas City Royals over the weekend, which is good. A team on a 100-win pace, as the Twins are, should beat a team on a 100-loss pace, as the Royals are.

But Cleveland swept the Angels as well, so the Twins didn't widen their margin over the weekend. And the Twins have the tougher matchup next with the Atlanta Braves; Cleveland plays Cincinnati.

The bad news is that since my last post the Twins have put three players on the injured list.

Byron Buxton is the most troublesome of the injuries; he's likely to miss most if not all of August. In a very real way, Buxton is the most important player on this team, and he's simply got to stop running into walls. Nothing good comes of it.

I'm less concerned about the two pitchers, Michael Pineda and Sam Dyson. Pineda had a brief stint on the IL earlier in the season. Reading between the lines, the first stint was essentially precautionary, and it sounds like this one is also. "Big Mike" is on his first full season back after Tommy John surgery, and even though he's a free agent after the season the Twins are handling him with some care.

He's been pitching well, too, with an ERA of 2.23 over his last six starts.

Dyson ... well, the eyebrows rise when a player comes in a midseason trade, has two poor outings and goes on the IL. The Twins appear to believe that the IL stint will be essentially the mimimal 10-days. Dyson is said to believe he's able to pitch, but the Twins want to give him a break and get the soreness out of his arm.

So Dyson and Pineda miss these next two series on the homestand, Atlanta and Cleveland. It's early August, but this could be a critical week.

Michael Pineda, Devin Smeltzer and the roster

Michael Pineda had on Monday what has become a standard Michael Pineda start -- six innings, three runs. He made five starts in May and allowed three earned runs in each. Three were six innings, one was five, one was seven.

Three earned runs in six innings is a minimal quality start. It's not wining him any Cy Young awards, but it's certainly acceptable from the back of the rotation. The Twins are just 5-6 in Pineda's 11 starts -- the bullpen gave up the lead he bequeathed Monday -- and his ERA remains over 5, but I wouldn't be eager to discard him.

So when the Twins put him on the injured list Tuesday morning with right knee tendinitis, I agreed with the social media theory that the Twins were taking advantage of a scheduling quirk to give Pineda a short break. (Pineda had surgery on that knee last September.) The idea going around Twitter was:

• Devin Smeltzer gets Tuesday's start and is immediately optioned back to Triple A.
• Nelson Cruz comes off the DL for Thursday's game in St. Petersburg against the Rays.
• Luis Arraez is optioned out during the weekend when Mitch Garver is ready to return
• With two off days in the offing (one of them today), the Twins don't need the fifth starter until Pineda is eligible to return.

That seemed a logical sequence of moves.

But after Smeltzer threw six highly efficient shutout innings on Tuesday, Rocco Baldelli signaled a different plan:

Rocco Baldelli said that Devin Smeltzer will travel with the team and the plan is for him to make another MLB start.

The trip to Tampa Bay is doubly great for Smeltzer, who lives in Fort Myers, Fla. with his wife, Brianne.

— Do-Hyoung Park (@dohyoungpark) May 29, 2019

So no, I don't know what they have in mind. At some point soon, Cruz and Garver are coming back. Pineda doesn't figure to be out long. And the roster is jammed with productive players. It's a good probem.

Getting outs

A few observations, and maybe some conclusions, about pitching ....

1. Michael Pineda can be really tough to watch. That was certainly the case Tuesday night when he gave up three runs in the first inning while working at a glacial pace. Given the time zone difference on a Tuesday night, I would imagine that there are a lot of the Twins fans surprised this morning to find the Twins won.

1A. Pineda's final line -- three runs allowed in six innings -- supports my Monday print column conclusion earlier this month: He may not be a Cy Young contender, but there are a lot of teams that would love to have a fifth starter like him.

2. Were either Bert Blyleven or Jack Morris doing this road trip on FSN, they would be doing conniption fits. On Monday Jake Odorizzi threw five shutout innings and was relieved without facing a batter in the sixth; he told reporters that he encouraged manager Rocco Baldelli to pull him. The Twins bullpen allowed one run in four innings and the Twins won 3-1, although Odorizzi didn't get credit for the win.

On Tuesday the Angels' Trevor Cahill threw five scoreless innings, then gave up a leadoff double to Max Kepler.  Brad Ausmus pulled him, and the Twins quickly went double-homer to tie the game off his successor.

We've all heard Blyleven and Morris say the manager would have had to fight them to pull them from a shutout. But Odorizzi and Cahill are veteran starters with well-established histories as five-and-fly gues. They aren't 200-inning machines, as Blyleven and Morris were decades ago. 

Baldelli and Ausmus handled them properly. The difference is that Baldelli's bullpen got the job done on Monday (and Tuesday); Ausmus' did not.

3. Part of the bullpen meltdown for the Angels was Luke Bard. Bard was drafted and signed by the Twins out the the same draft in which they landed Byron Buxton and Jose Berrios; he was prominent in a group of college closers the Twins drafted that year (2012), many of whom the Twins sought to make starters.

Most of them washed out, although the Twins still have Tyler Duffey. Bard spent a lot of his time in the Twins system on the shelf, and even when healthy they showed little real interest in pushing him to the majors. The Angels took him in the Rule 5 draft last year and carried him for part of the season before returning him to the Twins; then they signed him as a minor league free agent.

He was hardly great Tuesday night -- four runs, all earned, in one inning -- and was charged with the loss. The Angels' defense did him no favors, but that was only part of the problem.

I would like him to make the Twins regret not giving him a major league opportunity. I doubt he will.

Thoughts from the weekend

Must ... resist ... the impluse to read too much into the Detroit series. Splitting with the Tigers isn't a disaster, but it wasn't what I expected either. It was a series in mid May, or perhaps a bit earlier than mid May, with a doubleheader, and Rocco Baldelli gave the reserves a good bit of run.

A few bullet points:

* The Twins got less-than-dominant starts Saturday and Sunday. This was not really a surprise from Michael Pineda and Kohl Stewart, even if the Tigers have a notably light-hitting lineup; it says a lot about how quickly Martin Perez has risen in my esteem that his outing surprised me.

*Deeper thoughts on Pineda and Stewart in the Monday print column.

* A good bit of roster shuffling this weekend connected to the makeup doubleheader Saturday. Stewart came up to start Saturday' second game; officially he was taking the place of Perez, who was on paternity leave for the birth of his son. Tyler Duffey was the 26th man for the doubleheader and pitched a strong inning to wrap up that one.

And La Tortuga is back from the injured list. The Twins cut back to 12 pitchers after Saturday and reactivated Willians Astudillo, who caught and led off Sunday. This makes him the fourth catcher to hit leadoff in Twins history -- John Roseboro, Butch Wynegar in the past and Mitch Garver and Astudillo this year.

* I had expected that, if the Twins were to cut back to 12 pitchers, that Mike Morin would be the loser, but it was Fernando Romero instead. Baldelli,  on the radio pregame show Sunday, had an intriguing reason for that: Romero isn't getting enough regular work in the major league bullpen to develop. They want him to pitch two days in a row, to finish an inning and go back out ("up-and-down"), and those opportunities aren't there with the Twins. Or they're there, but it's the Big Four being asked to do them.

* One of those Big Four, Trevor Hildenberger, is definitely in a pitching slump, surrendering a pair of runs both Saturday and Sunday. Again, must resist the urge to overreact -- but Hildenberger has shown a tendency for bad streaks in the past.

* Miguel Sano's rehab tour of the minor leagues is near its end. He's at Triple A now and hammered a couple of doubles over the weekend (and struck out a few times too.) Meanwhile, Nelson Cruz came out of Sunday's game with a sore wrist, which is to be examined today. If Cruz has to sit a while, that probably gets Sano back on the roster without bouncing either Jake Cave or Ehire Adrianza, and opens up a lineup slot as well.

Contemplating Michael Pineda

Michael Pineda has now made seven starts for the Twins. He's 2-3 with a 6.09 ERA, and to paraphrase the manager in "Bull Durham," How'd he ever win two?

Mid-May was the point in the season in which, in the Terry Ryan era, the Twins were generally willing to lop a struggling veteran starter who was trying to milk another year out of his arm. Ryan isn't running this organization now, of course, and I suspect the current front office isn't contemplating dropping the ax on Pineda just yet.

A 6.09 ERA is ugly, no question, and that ERA has more than doubled over the course of his last four starts, including Sunday against the Yankees.Seven homers allowed in 34 innings isn't good either, and his body language frequently evokes unpleasant memories of Mike Pelfrey.

But there are reasons for patience:

*His walk-strikeout rates (9 walks, 30 strikeouts) are good. Those remain my preferred "leading indicator" stats, the ones that point to the quality of his pitches and the ability to hit the strike zone. As Jim Kaat said during the telecast, Pineda still has swing-and-miss stuff.

*The Twins signed him coming off Tommy John surgery as a two-year project, and they have been rather ginger in handling him so far this chilly spring. I doubt they're going to pull the plug six or seven weeks into the anticipated payoff on that investment.

*I don't think there's a starter in the minors who looks like a possible upgrade right now. In the aforementioned Ryan era, the likes of Sidney Ponson and Ramon Ortiz were plugging a back-of-the-rotation spot to buy time for prospects to marinate in the upper minors. But the best current upper minors starter now is probably Stephen Gonsalves, and he has yet to pitch this season.

* Pineda is not killing the team. The Twins are 3-4 in his starts. Sure, you'd like better, but winning half the starts of your fifth starter isn't terrible. The Astros pinned two of those lousy starts on him; that will happen.

Bottom line: He's going to keep getting the ball.

Thoughts from the weekend

There was some grumbling on my Twitter feed about the quick hook for Michael Pineda, who worked just four innings, allowing one hit and throwing just 40 pitches, before giving way to Martin Perez.

The complainers generally recognized that the plan coming into the game was four innings from each, in a "piggyback" arrangement designed to keep Perez, destined for a starters role, stretched out, But with Pineda faring so well, their argument went, let Perez do his extra throwing in the bullpen to imaginary hitters and let Pineda go deeper.

Were that game being played in the defunct Metrodome, I might grant that argument. But it was outdoors on a chilly if sunny day, and Pineda is in his second full season after Tommy John surgery. A quick hook for him was justified.

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Three games for the Twins under new skipper Rocco Baldelli, three different starting catchers -- and essentially one batting order, with whoever is catching hitting eighth.

I daresay the three previous Twins skippers, dating back more than two decades, would have made a point of getting everybody on the bench a start in the opening series. Baldelli did not. Ehire Adrianza, Tyler Austin and Jake Cave all got into Sunday's game late, after it was all but decided, and each got an at-bat, and Cave pinch-ran Saturday.

And that's all the action that trio got in the Cleveland series. Each, in my estimate, is on the active roster only because of injury and the rash of off-days. None has a real purpose on the roster.

Plenty of managers -- and Tom Kelly was emphatically of this mindset, Ron Gardenhire less so -- take the approach of: If he's on the roster, I need to find a use for him. Three games in, it appears Baldelli is not interested in crimping the playing time of his regulars to get this trio some at-bats.

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Cleveland was, and doubtless remains, the consensus pick to win the AL Central. I've grown increasingly skeptical of that in recent weeks, partly on the basis of the Tribe's unwillingness/inability to rebuild its outfield.

Cleveland played this series without middle infielders Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis, and Lindor's absence in particular took a key piece out of their puzzle. But even when Lindor and Kipnis return, this is a shallow lineup.

Assume that Lindor and Kipnis return as legitimate top-half-of-the-order hitters, something Kipnis hasn't been the past two seasons. We'll assume it as a best-case scenario anyway. That will give Cleveland some order of Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Kipnis and Carlos Santana hitting leadoff through cleanup, and that's not bad at all (again, assuming Kipnis is the Kipnis of 2013-16). But the bottom half of that lineup ... ugh.

Add in the depletion of their bullpen, and it's not pretty. The Indians have genuine strengths -- that's probably the best rotation in the majors -- and there's a force of habit at work prompting people to forget that Terry Francona doesn't have the talent on hand that he's had in the past. But this weekend displayed the Indians' genuine flaws. The Twins are better balanced, and I think they not only can win this division, they should win it.

Trip to Cedar Rapids: Off day

The Twins had expected to have Michael Pineda ready to step into the starting rotation next month. They wanted to spend the rest of the season looking at Adalberto Mejia.

Neither will happen.

Pineda, as you may remember, was signed to a two-year deal with an eye to 2019; he was to (and did) spend the season rehabbing his right elbow after Tommy John surgery. That went well enough that for the past month or so it was assumed that he would pitch in September. Instead, he has a meniscus tear. He might pitch winter ball. 

This, really, changes nothing about Pineda and 2019. He was expected to fill one of the rotation slots next year, and he's still expected to fill a rotation slot.

The same cannot be said of Mejia's injury, described as nerve irritation. The lefty is out of options after this season, so he's either on the active roster in 2019 or waived.

He's had a good season: 3.27 ERA in Triple A, 2.01 in five appearances in the majors. Hidden by the sparkling major league ERA: he's had just one appearance of more than 15 outs, his walk-to-strikeout ratio isn't good, and his strikeout rate is low.

But that's just 22.1 innings. The walk and strikeout rates in Triple A were strong. The innings per outing, not so much.

So Mejia really needed this opportunity. The Twins called him up in mid July to give him a chance to show, if not the Twins then somebody else, that he's capable of being a useful rotation piece. Instead, he's going to hit the offseason not only without that opportunity, but with a possibly significant health question.

Gone and back

Ryan LaMarre, who made the Minnesota roster out of spring training, bounced up and down, got some regular playing time in center with Byron Buxton's rehab assignment/demotion and was finally waived by the Twins, was claimed by the Chicago White Sox.

I found LaMarre an easy player to root for, but that hardly overcomes his limitations as a ballplayer. He looked like a good defensive outfielder (the metrics didn't really agree), displayed little power at the plate and made too many baserunning mistakes. In that last he was hardly unique on this team. Jake Cave has a higher ceiling.

LaMarre was a fringe guy on the Twins. He'll be a fringe guy with the White Sox.

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The Twins announced that Felix Jorge had been released and then re-signed to a minor league contract. 

The mechanics here are ... interesting, at least to me. Jorge was called up twice last season for spot starts and spent the offseason and much of season on the 40-man roster but sidelined by a triceps injury. The Twins DFA'd him at the start of the month to create a spot for Willians Astudillo.

So Jorge cleared waivers -- and then apparently, the Twins released him and re-signed him rather than outright him. The advantage for the Twins: If and when they decide to put him on the 40 again only to decide to take him off, he won't have the option of declaring free agency. He had that opportunity this time around.

This is probably all academic anyway, certainly in the short term. Jorge is a long way from being a factor for the big league club.

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Closer to being a factor for the big league club: Ervin Santana is apparently expected to be restored to the Twins roster and rotation after the All-Star break. Barring a trade or injury involving somebody else, this is presumably not good news for Aaron Slegers.

A bit further away: Michael Pineda, signed to a two-year deal by the Twins last winter while he recovers from Tommy John surgery is slated to go on a rehab assignment later this month. He might get a month to six weeks in the major league rotation this year. I don't think the Twins were counting on that when they signed him.

Adding Michael Pineda

Michael Pineda's season ended in July.

The Twins on Wednesday signed free agent pitcher Michael Pineda to a two-year deal. They realistically expect something out of that contract in the second year.

Pineda had Tommy John surgery last summer. Most of 2018 will be spent rehabbing the rebuilt elbow. He'll spend the winter on the 40-man roster, open the season on the disabled list and will certainly be moved to the 60-day DL (and off the 40-man roster) as soon as the Twins need a 40-man spot next season.

As matters stand, the Twins have Jose Berrios set for the 2019 rotation. Ervin Santana and Kyle Gibson will be eligible for free agency after 2018; Trevor May and Phil Hughes, like Pineda, are rehab projects; and prospects Stephen Gonsalves, Fernando Romero, Felix Jose and Aaron Slegers have not established themselves in the majors.

The Twins obviously want to add a big-name starter this winter; the openness with which Thad Levine in particular talks about Yu Darvish is certainly a change from the close-to-the-vest approach of Terry Ryan. Pineda, even without the surgery, is not a big-name starter, although he has some impressive secondary numbers and (when sound) the tools to become a big-name starter.

What he is right now is inventory for 2019.

Jesus Montero, Michael Pineda and Francisco Liriano

Jesus Montero can flat out hit,
but his defense is lacking. He may
wind up at first base or  DH.

Michael Pineda faded in the
second half last year, but still
struck out more than a batter
an inning.

An interesting trade made this weekend (pending physicals): the Yankees swapped hitter-without-a-position Jesus Montero to Seattle for young power starter Michael Pineda.

Interesting because the trade involves two guys widely viewed as future stars. Montero is nominally a catcher, but there is a great deal of doubt that he can stick behind the plate. But there is no doubt that he can hit, and the M's, who have done pretty well at developing starting pitchers, are sorely lacking in impact bats. And the Yankees have a wealth of catching prospects and no real other place to put Montero in the lineup.

And interesting because last spring, when there was a flurry of rumor that the Twins were shopping Francisco Liriano around, Montero struck me as one trade target that I would not complain about.

This trade strongly suggests that the Yankees wouldn't have made such a deal even up.

Pineda has one year of service time, which means he has two years before he even becomes arbitration eligible. Lirano last spring was two years away from free agency. Even if one regards Liriano, as of the end of the 2010 season, and Pineda today as equivalent talents, the difference in financial leverage makes Pineda far more valuable.

Ken Davidoff of Newsday reported this weekend that the Cubs were after Montero PLUS talent from the Yankees in exchange for Matt Garza. Again, Garza is two years from free agency; Pineda is more valuable.