Talking rotation

Derek Falvey at the winter meetings Monday:

Falvey: "I think it's highly likely that one of Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, that group of guys, is going to be pitching for us early in the season as part of our rotation barring, obviously, injury. That's likely, but we don't want to put too much strain on a lot of that group."1/2

— Betsy Helfand (@betsyhelfand) December 10, 2019

 



Clear as mud, right? Presumably the Twins rotation now looks like

1. Jose Berrios
2. Jake Odorizzi
3. Michael Pineda
4. (veteran to be acquired)
5. (rookie to emerge)

Except that we know Pineda's not pitching in April. He's got the rest of his suspension to serve yet. So maybe Falvey means the "early in the season" rotation projects as:

1. Berrios
2. Odorizzi
3. (veteran to be acquired)
4. (veteran to be acquired)
5. (rookie placeholder for Pineda)

One of the hallmarks of the Terry Ryan era was the placeholder veteran starter. The Twins regularly brought in an older arm on a disposable contract to fill a back-of-the-rotation slot for a while. Sidney Ponson. Ramon Ortiz. Livan Hernandez. They were usually gone by mid May, but in the meantime a prospect had marinated a bit longer in Triple A. And sometimes the veteran was effective enough to last a while longer.

That's an approach I can see Falvine taking here. So yet another potential meaning of Falvey's quote:

1. Berrios
2. Odorizzi
3. (veteran to be acquired)
4. (veteran placeholder for Pineda)
5. (rookie to emerge)

No. 3 in that scenario would, ideally, be somebody along the lines of Madison Bumgarner or Hyun-Jin Ryu -- somebody they're counting on to be a season-long starter. No. 4 would be a different matter.

Theoretically, of course, the veteran placeholder could do well enough to remain in place (as Martin Perez did last season), but that would probably mean that none of the prospects are faring well, and I think that's unlikely. They won't all emerge, but they won't all fail either.

Ervin Santana and the rotation

The expectation here on Tuesday was that Adalberto Mejia would lose his roster spot to make room for Ervin Santana, who is to make his 2018 debut for the Twins tonight in Toronto.

Instead, the Twins after Tuesday's game designated utility man Taylor Motter for assignment.

Motter has distinguished himself only by possessing the longest hair in team history, so his likely departure (either by waiver claim or free agency) is minor news. What is interesting is that the Twins now have six starting pitchers on their active roster.

Three possibilities:

• Paul Molitor will go with a six-man rotation.
• A veteran pitcher is about to be traded.
• Somebody is getting shifted to the bullpen.

The first and last can be paired with the second, a temporary measure during this final week before the non-waiver trading deadline that avoids moving Mejia back to the minors and restarting his 10-day option clock.

But No. 2, a trade, seems the most likely reason to keep Mejia in the bigs. And it seems to me that if Santana tonight displays some velocity (say 92 mph) and command of his slider, he would be more desirable trade bait than fellow free-agent-to-be Lance Lynn.

True, Santana has done nothing in the majors to this point. A team looking to deepen its rotation for the stretch run might still prefer that lack of a record to what Lynn has produced this season.

Spring training trip: A day off

The wife and I take one day of our biannual spring training trip to go to Sanibel, and Monday was the day for that.

Really, the Twins highlight for the day for me came in the evening, when my wife was checking out at the Publix on Six Mile Cypress and Tony Oliva strolled by.

While I was off on my island jaunt, the Twins were making the Lance Lynn signing official. On Sunday, with the deal not yet official, the Twins released Anibal Sanchez, which created room on the 40-man roster for Lynn.

Lynn will start today as the Twins try to ramp him up for the opening rotation.

Paul Molitor hasn't named his opening day starter, much less the rotation, but he has said that it's more important to have Jose Berrios lined up to pitch in the Puerto Rico series than in the opener. My guess, therefore, is that the rotation will go Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, Berrios and Lynn. As I understand it, Berrios in game three sets him up not only to pitch in Puerto Rico but in the home opener. And pushing Lynn back to the fourth game will give him the opportunity to work in one more tune-up start in Florida.

Meanwhile, Phil Hughes had a pretty solid outing Monday night. He's probably Plan B for the rotation if -- let's make that when -- somebody gets hurt; in the meantime, he will be in the bullpen. Sanchez is already released.  The third member of what I called the Tier One candidates for the rotation, Aldaberto Mejia, will likely be sent to Triple A.

And that will probably have a domino effect on the prospect crew that made up Tiers Two and Three (Aaron Slegers, Stephen Gonsalves, Fernando Romero, Felix Jorge, Zack Littell, Dietrich Enns). At least one of those six was going to be in Double A; now it's likely two of them will.

One point Derek Falvey made about the Lynn signing is that adding him doesn't really block the prospects. Both Lynn and Ervin Santana will be free agents after 2018; Odorizzi, Gibson and Hughes after 2019. The Twins will be quite happy if the prospects get to spend this season marinating in Triple A, and wait to step into the rotation plans in 2019.

Spinning the rotation

With Ervin Santana sidelined for more than a month to open the season and the Twins' search for rotation depth frozen in the free-agent standoff, Paul Molitor this week hinted at the possibility of skipping a starter with frequency in the early part of the season.

As he and his pitching advisors see it, the Twins could get through April only using the fifth starter twice.

It's easy to see the rationale behind paring the rotation back to something like 4.5 starters. As Earl Weaver said, it's easier to find four starters than five. And at this very moment, the Twins have two pitchers they consider locks for the rotation to open the season, Jose Berrios and Kyle Gibson. The other slots are undetermined.

But there are reasons to avoid doing that. In the heyday of the four-man rotation, most teams used early-season offdays to skip their fourth starter with frequency, but not Weaver. He recognized that he would need his No. 4 sharp in the following months, and figured that more rest between starts in the early season chill was better for his aces.

And that's pretty much how I expect Molitor and pitching coach Gavin Alston to conclude this internal debate. I expect they would rather have Berrios, who turns 24 in May, make 30 starts than 34, and would rather not push him in 40-degree temps. And he's the high-ceiling starter, the guy who gives them any advantage to pushing. (There is little obvious gain to skipping, say, Aaron Slegers to give another start to Adalberto Mejia.)

What may lead to some rotation juggling is the April 17-18 series in Puerto Rico against the Cleveland Indians. Molitor recognizes that those games have an emotional resonance for Berrios, and I will be very surprised if Berrios doesn't get one of those starts. Not only does the setting matter for Berrios personally, but these are the top two teams in the AL Central, and having the Twins most talented starter pitch against Cleveland makes sense.

From the Handbook: Starting pitcher rankings

Another new item in the Handbook this winter (and it suddenly feels like winter in southern Minnesota) is a system of ranking starting pitchers.

By their methodology -- complex enough that the book refers readers to the subscription Bill James Online site for a complete explaination -- Ervin Santana is currently the 14th best starter in baseball. (The Top 5: Corey Kluber, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale and Justin Verlander, a perfectly acceptable quintent and ranking.)

Santana is squeezed between Jose Quintana and Robbie Ray, two lefties considerably younger than Santana.

Kyle Gibson is 63rd (the system heavily favor the most recent starts, and he had a very strong September). Jose Berrios is 88th and Bartolo Colon is 99th. Aldaberto Mejia comes in at 129.

Those would be the five-most used starters of the 2017 Twins. I'm confident that most of us would rank Berrios higher than Gibson, and I would put Mejia above Colon but we're anticipating the future when we do that.

Or not adding Jamie Garcia

Reports of the Twins trading for Jamie Garcia proved to be greatly exaggerated. The Mexican lefty started Friday night in Los Angeles, allowing three runs in seven innings to the mighty Dodgers and even hitting a grand slam -- for the Braves.

The supposedly imminent deal was on the rocks by Friday morning, with the Braves said to be shopping the 31-year-old around to other clubs. I'm in no position to evaluate what went wrong, but with so many reporters -- national and local -- all reporting the same thing Thursday night, I have to assume there was fire behind that smoke.

And this presumably near-deal suggests that the Twins are indeed in the market for a rental starter, despite Thad Levine's earlier statements that the front office is focused on players who would help in 2018 and beyond. (Garcia is a free agent after this season).

A rental makes sense (properly priced, of course). The Twins need to deepen their rotation; right now the fourth and fifth starters are Kyle Gibson (6.29 ERA coming into tonight's start) and Bartolo Colon (8.18 ERA between Atlanta and Minnesota). News flash: Those ERAs are not good.

Assume for the moment that the Twins pick up a rental starter akin to Garcia. Even with Rental X joining Hector Santiago in free agency after the seasons, and even assuming that the Twins nontender Gibson, the Twins would still enter the offseason with:

• Three effective 2017 starters (Ervin Santana, Jose Berrios, Adalberto Mejia)
• Two rehab projects (Phil Hughes, Trevor May)
• Five good to reasonable prospects currently in Double A or Triple A rotations and thus presumably nearly ready (Fernando Romero, Stephen Gonsalves, Felix Jorge, Kyle Stewart, Aaron Slegers).

They'd probably like to add a veteran arm on a one-year deal to open the season. That would allow them some flexibility with the rehab projects and not be forced to rush a prospect. But that list has 10 2018 starters. They can afford to target a 2017-only addition, especially if that rental doesn't cost them Romero or Gonsalves.

Twins rotation and the WBC

It's hardly a crisis, but Paul Molitor this week hasn't anything close to his season opening rotation on hand.

Ervin Santana left camp to join the Dominican Republic team for the second round of the World Baseball Classic, and Hector Santiago and Jose Berrios were already with Team Puerto Rico. Toss in the season-ending injury to Trevor May, and the Twins are without two rotation locks and two primary candidates.

Not that Molitor is short on pitchers. Indeed, the absent ones have opened innings for a number of "lesser" candidates, specifically non-roster invitees Ryan Vogelsong and Nick Tepesch and Rule 5 pick Justin Haley. Vogelsong and Haley each drew their first spring starts this week, Vogelsong on Sunday, Haley on Monday.

May's injury in particular seems to have amped up the possibility of Vogelsong landing a rotation spot. The 39-year-old would seem to have limited upside and I'm not sure that his floor is very high, but the Twins seem to value his experience.

An interesting quote (via the Pioneer Press and Mike Beranadino) from Vogelsong:

"... I know there’s a competition, so there’s definitely a fine line of where you go, ‘I’m working on stuff but I need to get results too.’ I think the powers that be here are smart enough to see spin and pitches being executed and doing the things you need to do to win a ballgame.”

My translation of that: Vogelsong is taking the established veteran approach to spring despite knowing that he's not established. He's confident that the new front office will look beyond the spring training ERAs and examine the data gathered from their TrackMan system -- objective data on his pitches, the spin rates and the movement and location.

Will that be enough to get him the fifth starter job? My personal bias is for the guys with some growth potential, and that ain't him. I can't see Vogelsong as anything deeper than a placeholder.

---

Hector Santiago, as noted in the Monday print column, is working out of the Puerto Rican bullpen. Tuesday night he threw 2.2 shutout innings as Puetro Rico beat the powerful Dominicans 3-1. Santiago has now thrown 5.1 innings in the WBC, allowing one run.

My grasp of the pitching rules for the WBC is incomplete, but I believe Santiago has been burned for the rest of the second round. Berrios is to start against Venezuela in Puerto Rico's third game of the round.

---

This will be interesting to see play out: Ervin Santana had resisted the urge to play for the Dominicans, saying he wanted to focus on making his opening day start, but relented after the first round.

Reportedly he insisted that he be a starter -- he didn't want to go to San Diego to throw a couple innings of relief -- and the Twins apparently expected that he would be kept on their schedule so he remained on track to pitch on April 3, the Twins opening day.

That would have meant pitching Tuesday night. Instead, Carlos Martinez (St. Louis Cardinals) got the start against Puerto Rico. Santana is to start on Saturday against Team USA, which is as far off the schedule as he can be.

I don't know what Santana and the Twins were told before Santana agreed to play, but it's quite possible somebody thinks they were lied to. Tuesday was an off day for the Twins, and major league camp was closed, but Thad Levine issued a bland statement saying that he was sure the Twins could adjust things so Santana can start the opener.

And I think that's true. This isn't optimal, but the Twins should be able to work around it.

Bulk numbers of starters

When we start thinking about the Twins starting rotation, the first thing to consider is the limited opportunities.

The Twins have four veteran starters with eight- or seven-digit salaries: Ervin Santana, Phil Hughes, Kyle Gibson and Hector Santiago. If healthy, they're filling 80 percent of the rotation. (I truly expected the Twins to move one of Gibson or Santiago during the winter, but it not only never happened, I never heard of any rumors.)

That leave one spot to decide this spring, and a lot of possibilities:

Young holdovers: Tyler Duffey made 26 starts last year and -- you might win a bet on this -- led the team in wins (9) despite a 6.43 ERA. Jose Berrios made 14 starts and got racked up for an 8.02 ERA, They had the two highest strikeout rates of the nine Twins who made at least nine starts, but their results were bad enough that they aren't certainties for the rotation.

The reconversion: Trevor May was on-and-off the disabled list with back problems, and a popular theory blamed it on the everyday activity of bullpen work. I like his stuff in the 'pen -- his fastball really perked up in short use -- but if he can't pitch, it doesn't do any good.

The rookies: Aldeberto Mejia -- big lefty they got from the Giants in the Eduardo Nunez trade last summer -- apparently impressed Monday throwing live BP. Justin Haley is a Rule 5 pick, so he has to make the 25-man roster or be offered back to Boston. He might stay as a long man in the bullpen,

The retreads: Ryan Vogelsong is 39, has made an All-Star team, been in the rotation for two World Series winners and has spend 12 years bouncing between Pittsburgh and San Francisco. Nick Tepesch is 11 years younger and less accomplished. Both are non-roster invitees. I don't expect much from either, but I didn't last year from Brandon Kintzler either.

There to be seen: Four arms from the farm system in camp who aren't serious contenders for April but might be factors later in the season: Fernando Romero, Stephen Gonsalves, Felix Jose and Aaron Sledgers. The part of me fascinated by bright shiny objects would rather see one or two of them than Santiago or Gibson, but the sensible part knows better.

My preliminary ranking of how likely they are to open in the rotation: May. Duffey, Mejia, Tepesch, Vogelsong, Berrios, Haley.

The rotation candidates

The news Wednesday that Tommy Milone signed with the Milwaukee Brewers led me to think about the Twins rotation at this point. (It's mid December. Do you know who your starting pitchers are?)

Let's think of it this way: there are pitchers who will be in the rotation if healthy, pitchers who can pitch their way out of rotation jobs in the spring, and pitchers who will need a break or two (injuries or ineffectiveness of others) to open the season in the rotation.

In the rotation if healthy: Ervin Santana and Phil Hughes. I'll put Hector Santiago in this category as well.

Santana is pretty obvious. Hughes is coming off surgery but has three more years to go on his contract. Santiago was weirdly inconsistent in his 11 starts with the Twins; in his first four starts, marked by an absence of walks, he posted a 10.89 ERA. After that his walks went back up to his usual levels and the ERA went down to 3.19 over his last seven starts. He's not a thrilling rotation candidate, but he did work more than 180 major-league innings last year between two teams and is the one veteran lefty in the rotation mix.

Can pitch their way out of the rotation: Kyle Gibson, Tyler Duffey, Trevor May.

Gibson and Duffey were two major reasons for the Twins 2016 decline from the competence of 2015, and I wouldn't be surprised if Gibson in particular got moved yet this offseason. There's little reason to believe the new "evidence-based" regime will be as optimistic about him as the Terry Ryan-led organization. May's physical issues as a reliever suggest that he'd be better off as a starter, and I hope he gets that opportunity.

Will need a break or two: Jose Berrios, Fernando Mejia, Justin Haley and other invitees.

La Maquina (Berrios) racked up an ERA of 8.02 in 58.1 major league innings last year; he may be the most talented of the nine arms named in this post, but he's got to command the fastball better than he did in 2016. I think he opens in Triple A. Mejia, acquired from the Giants in the Eduardo Nunez trade, probably has a better shot at the opening rotation than Berrios. Haley is the Rule 5 draftee added last week; he's use-or-lose, but he's more likely to stick as a long man/mopup reliever than at the back end of the rotation.

That's nine candidates for five jobs, but I expect it will change between today and spring training.

Contemplating Pat Dean

Pat Dean 's strikeout
rate in the minors was
5.3 per nine innings.
He has 20 Ks in 21
innings so far with
the Twins.

Pat Dean made his second start for the Twins on Friday night in Seattle and handcuffed the Mariners for his first major league W -- seven innings, four hits, two runs, no walks, eight strikeouts. One of those runs was the result of a leadoff "triple" that Danny Santana really should have corralled.

Last Saturday, Dean went six innings against Toronto, allowing two runs in a no-decision that the Twins ultimately won. Add in two relief outings, and he has a 3.43 ERA in 21 innings.

So who is Pat Dean, and what should we reasonably expect from him?

Lefty, 26 years old, third-round draft pick in 2010, worked his way up the minor league ladder without any real success until last season, when he put up a 2.82 ERA in 179 innings at Triple A. Dick Bremer last night was calling it a breakthrough season, but the underlying stats really didn't change for him. He still had a poor strikeout rate, still had a very good walk rate. He was, presumably, either lucky or had a better defense behind him, or both.

He is, to slap a label on him, a finesse lefty, and we've seen this act a few times before: Scott Diamond, Andrew Albers, Tommy Milone. They had some success when they located their mediocre fastballs exceptionally well, and failed when they didn't. They have very little margin of error, and that more often than not results in brief careers.

Dean right now has an opportunity and is doing something good with it. The Greg McMichael Rule again: If you get outs, they'll find a role for you. Right now that role is starting rotation, but that could change really fast.

Kyle Gibson had a rehab start the other day in Fort Myers (with Terry Ryan in attendance), and it's possible that he'll return as soon as this week. Who would Gibson dislodge from the rotation? There's a dilemma. The three veterans with fat contracts (Ervin Santana, Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes) aren't doing well, and the two young guys with flexible roster status (Dean and Tyler Duffey) are getting outs and working innings.

Bottom line: Dean can't afford a slip up, and there's reason to expect that he will, eventually, slip up.

Contemplating Alex Meyer

The Twins returned Friday from Thursday's offday with a reshuffled rotation. Tommy Milone got bounced to the bullpen, and Alex Meyer is to start Tuesday.

Then Meyer pitched in relief Friday and didn't fare well -- one inning, five hits, two runs, a walk and a wild pitch. Inasmuch as he hadn't worked in nine days, that was probably to be expected. The Tuesday start is still his.

The Twins will close out April with two members of the starting rotation that opened the season still standing -- Phil Hughes and Ricky Nolasco. It sounds like Ervin Santana will return late next week (he's to test his back with a bullpen session today), and that Kyle Gibson won't be ready to return when eligible to come off the disabled list..

The odds are that one of the three additions to the rotation -- J.O. Barrios, Tyler Duffey and Meyer -- is likely to get moved back to Rochester if/when Santana returns. That is based on the notion that there are no bullpen changes, and that notion may be misplaced.

The Twins had Meyer starting in Rochester, and he did well in in 17.1 innings -- 19 strikeouts, just two walks, 1.04 ERA -- but that probably only sharpens the debate over whether the big guy is better suited to the bullpen or the rotation. Paul Molitor was in the bullpen camp when Meyer was sent down in March. Where Mollie will be if Meyer shines on Tuesday, who knows?

So it's Duffey today, Nolasco Sunday, Barrios Monday, Meyer Tuesday, Hughes Wednesday, an off day Thursday and ... well, maybe Santana on Friday, and get ready to shuffle. One of the younger guys will be dislodged when Santana returns, another when Gibson does. It would be nice if they pitch well enough to make Molitor squirm when they go back to Rochester, but I'm not counting on it.

The fifth starter outcome tree

Neither Tyler Duffey -- who pitched the "major league" games against a collection of Pirates scrubs in Bradenton -- nor Ricky Nolasco -- who pitched against minor leaguers on a back field at the Twins complex in Fort Myers -- was all that impressive Monday.

The line on Tyler Duffey: 4 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 1 HR. His Grapefruit League ERA is 7.30. #MNTwins

— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) March 28, 2016

Nolasco through 5: 4 2/3 IP, 5 hits, 2 xbh, 3 runs, 2 earned, 2 walks, 5 Ks, 1 WP. 84 pitches, 55 strikes.

— Phil Miller (@MillerStrib) March 28, 2016

Still, a decision on the fifth starter's job is expected this morning, and the conventional wisdom has it that Nolasco -- with a superficially superior spring training ERA, inflexible roster status and $25 million owed him over the next two years -- will get the nod.

The best case for going with Duffey is probably this: He was told going into camp that he was penciled into the rotation and he should focus on working on his changeup. He worked on his changeup and got shelled. If he gets demoted today, there's a genuine possibility that he'll go away believing that he was either lied to or set up to fail.

Beyond that, these are the possible outcomes if Duffey is indeed demoted:

1) Nolasco (or somebody else in the rotation) gets hurt or fails and Duffey is recalled to take his place.

2) The five starters all make 30 or more starts and throw 200 or so innings, in which case nobody's going to criticize management. It would also be the first time, I believe, that the Twins have had five starters make at least 30 starts apiece. So that second outcome is unlikely.

Bottom line: If Duffey isn't in the rotation to open the season, he's likely to be in the rotation at some point.

Twins in position for opener

Carlos Quentin will
not be on the Opening
Day roster.

Shortly after I published Saturday's post, the Twins announced the rest of their position player cuts.

The result is a 13-man group that offers few if any surprises. The two bench jobs that were arguably in dispute went to the two younger, out-of-options guys, Oswaldo Arcia and Danny Santana.

The Twins granted Carlos Quentin a few days to examine his options.  The veteran non-roster invitee had an impressive spring, but four-man benches are tough to crack if all one has to offer is a bat. Quentin was never a good defensive outfielder when he was young; now he's 33 and has had repeated leg injuries. Arcia is said to be a better defensive outfielder now than in previous years (he's taken some weight off), he's left-handed and he is almost a decade younger. Plus, as noted, he's out of options.

So we can assume Quentin's agent is calling a few clubs that might be in need of a pinch hit specialist or even a designated hitter, but my guess is that those few jobs are already filled. If somehow there is a major-league job out there for Quentin, I presume the Twins will release Q (why else would they let him look?). But I doubt that will be necessary.

The pitching staff won't be set until the fifth starter job is settled in the next couple of days. I devoted the Monday print column to the Tyler Duffey vs Ricky Nolasco competition for that job. I go back and forth on this one, really. I can defend going with either pitcher in the rotation.

What I can't defend, and hope the Twins don't try to use as a rationale, is basing the decision on spring training stats. Neither will have much more than a dozen Grapefruit League innings; that wouldn't be enough to draw a statistical conclusion on in regular season play, much less March.

Anyway: If Nolasco makes the rotation, Duffey goes to Rochester and there's a extra bullpen job available. If Duffey is the fifth piece of the rotation, either Nolasco goes to the 'pen (probable) or gets traded (less likely). If traded, there is, again, a bullpen spot available; if not, somebody else gets squeezed out.

That Triple A rotation

I took note about a week ago of Terry Ryan saying that the Twins might have more starters for Triple A Rochester than they have slots. He knew (naturally) what he was talking about.

Start with Jose Berrios, the team's top pitch prospect. Alex Meyer's major league future, if any, is probably in the bullpen, but he's going to start at Rochester to get innings. Taylor Rogers, who made 27 starts for Rochester last year and was sent out this week, figures to start there; so does Pat Dean, who also started 27 times for the Red Wings in 2015 and was part of the first wave of cuts. That's four.

We've accounted for four of the five rotation spots without figuring in any promotions for Double A Chattanooga -- which, you may recall, won the Southern League title. Some pitchers from the Lookouts might merit a move up the ladder, the most likely being Brett Lee and D.J. Baxendale.

Then there's Logan Darnell, who spent most of 2015 in the Red Wings bullpen but made seven strong starts at the end of the season. Darnell, a lefty, is still in major league camp as a non-roster invitee.

An added wild card in all this is Tyler Duffey, who has not had a good spring and may get squeezed out of the major league rotation despite his impressive finish to the 2015 season. One factor working against Duffey: He has options. The other starters do not.

It's possible that some team looking to plug a rotation hole would take Ricky Nolasco off the Twins hands. It's possible that the Twins will stick with Duffey and risk Nolasco's discontent with a bullpen assignment. It's also possible that the Twins will take the path of maximum flexibility and demote Duffey to start the season.

Remember: Teams have to expect to use at least eight starters over the course of a season. They have to have starting depth, and some of that depth has to be optionable. Duffey is optionable.

Kyle Gibson, Tyler Duffey and the piecemeal rotation

Paul Molitor has gone through September essentially naming starting pitchers one series at a time. I have previously compared Molitor's juggling of the starters to the way Tom Kelly moved pitchers around in his rookie September, 1987

Two crucial differences: Kelly was managing with the lead, while Molitor is playing catch-up; and Kelly had two horses, Frank Viola and Bert Blyleven, who each threw more than 250 innings with markedly better-than-league ERAs. Molitor has no such rotation foundation.

The best he has is Kyle Gibson, who might start Sunday's scheduled finale on three days rest. If he does, he has a chance to top 200 innings (he's at 194.2 now). Gibson's ERA right now is slightly better than Blyleven's in 1987, but his ERA+ (ERA adjusted to league and park environment) is a good bit worse (eight percent better than league average compared to Blyleven's 15).

And, of course, there's Tyler Duffey, the rookie sensation who started Thursday night and took a shutout into the seventh inning before giving up a two-run homer. Duffey has thrown now 58 innings in 10 major league starts (ERA 3.10), and he's also worked 138 innings in the minors for a total of 196.

The Twins -- one game out of the second wild-card spot and tied with the Angels with three games left on the schedule -- will start Ervin Santana tonight against the Royals. Tommy Milone figures to start Saturday, and I expect Gibson will get the ball if Sunday's game means anything.

And if a Game 163 is needed Monday? By the rotation, it would figure to be Mike Pelfrey, who is second on the team in starts and innings. But I can't imagine anybody has much faith in Big Pelf at this point. Molitor may well give the ball to Phil Hughes under that scenario, with Duffey pitching Tuesday on regular rest if the Twins are still alive. I can't imagine Molitor having Duffey go on three days rest.

Once past a Game 163 (or 164 in a more extreme tie-breaking scenario), Santana would be out of the picture. His PED suspension kicks back in for the postseason. Presumably the playoff starters would be some combination of Gibson, Duffey, Milone and either Hughes or Pelfrey. We can wait to wrestle with that problem until it actually arrives.

One starter's as good as the next (corrected)

The Twins rotation has been a shambles all month, and it got a bit more piecemeal Monday when Phil Hughes was sent back to the hotel with a fever and the flu. Tommy Milone started and got 17 outs (and his ninth win).

Milone's ERA stands now at 4.04. The Twins have six pitchers with at least 16 starts and 100 innings this year, and their ERAs are strikingly similar, with Hughes a bit out of step from the rest:

• Kyle Gibson (31 starts, 188.2 innings): 3.96
• Mike Pelfrey (29 starts, 163 innings): 4.09
• Hughes (24 starts, 154.1 innings): 4.43
• Milone (22 starts, 122.2 innings): 4.05
• Trevor May (16 starts, 113 innings): 4.06
• Ervin Santana (16 starts, 101 innings): 4.10

For that matter, Tyler Duffey and Ricky Nolasco have combined for 16 starts (but just 84.1 innings). Their combined ERA: 4.06.

A partial starting rotation

Paul Molitor's "starting rotation" appears to have essentially dissolved.

He used Thursday's off day to skip Tyler Duffey, who has thrown 170 innings this season, majors and minors, easily a career high. Phil Hughes is to start Tuesday after a month on the disabled list; Mike Pelfrey will be skipped, presumably on the basis that he's not very good. (If there is an arm on the staff the Twins should be careless with, it's Pelfrey's; he's a free agent to be, and they have plenty of replacement options available.)

What Molitor will do after that probably depends on what happens next week.

It's all reminding me of September 1987, when Tom Kelly kept Frank Viola and Bert Blyleven in regular rotation (but resisted the temptation to start them on short rest) and patched and filled around them. Les Straker, who had blister issues, pitched once a week. Steve Carlton spot started three times against Cy Young candidates (literally; his last three starts were against Teddy Higuera, Jack Morris and Bret Saberhagen). Kelly used a little Joe Niekro here, a little Mike Smithson there. A veteran minor leaguer named Jeff Bittiger started on Labor Day and won; Kelly didn't give him another start, which didn't make sense to me then and doesn't today,

Molitor is presumably anchoring Kyle Gibson, Tommy Milone and the resurgent Ervin Santana and shuffling the deck around them. If the Twins wind up in a Game 163 for that second wild card, Santana would be eligible to pitch, because that would still be considered regular season. As part of his PED punishment, however, Santana is ineligible for the postseason.

Which, a couple of weeks ago. wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Three quality starts later, one wishes he would be available.

The decaying Twins pitching staff

Jose Berrios was
bypassed for a call-up
as the Twins
shuffle their rotation
this weekend.

Friday was the first day of a makeshift weekend for the Twins pitching staff.

The Twins knew for more than a week that they had a hole to fill this weekend. They had called up Tyler Duffey for a disastrous start against Toronto, then shipped him back to Triple A and used the Monday off day to hide the open slot in the rotation. That slot comes up today.

Then Phil Hughes was sidelined this week with an ailing back.

The curious solution: Trevor May, relegated to the bullpen almost six weeks ago and the apparent No. 2 man in the bullpen behind Glen Perkins, started Friday. Duffey, brought back from Triple A with Hughes going on the disabled list, starts today. And Tommy Milone, whose own stint on the disabled list started this whole sequence, is to start Sunday. (Who loses his roster spot to make room for Milone is unknown.)

That translates to a bullpen game, a second start for a yo-yo'd pitcher, and a return from injury. Oh my aching bullpen.

Two weeks ago the brain trust dismissed the notion of pulling May out of the bullpen in Milone's absence. After a month of one-inning stints, he was deemed unprepared for starts. I figured he was confined to the bullpen for the duration.

And now he starts. And, presumably, will start again in five days.

Curious, I say, especially since premier prospect Jose Berrios was lined up for Friday's start in Triple A. (He threw six no-hit innings for Rochester, then failed to retire anybody in a five-run seventh.)

Duffey is a decent prospect; Berrios is a better one. I'm sure the Twins have reasons to prefer Duffey right now, but I can't identify them.

Meanwhile, saving May for Friday's start created a late-inning hole in the bullpen on Thursday, when Texas scored in the eighth to break a tie and win. No guarantee that May would have held the Rangers down, but we know Casey Fien didn't.

In the abstract, I prefer May as a starter to May as a reliever. In this specific time and place, returning him to the rotation is probably a mistake.

Further depleting the bullpen depth, Blaine Boyer -- whose season has sharply decayed since May -- went on the shelf with an elbow issue. Michael Tonkin was recalled for his fourth stint with the Twins this season. This does not disturb me; I think Tonkin has more to offer than Boyer, Obviously, the people with the responsibility to make those decisions think otherwise. And Tonkin certainly didn't help his cause with his outing Friday.

Contemplating the starting rotation

Kyle Gibson is
beginning to justify
his first-round
selection.

Several big-name starting pitchers are rumored to be trade bait this month: Cole Hamels of the Phillies, Johnny Cueto of the Reds, James Shields of the Padres, maybe even David Price of the Tigers.

I don't expect the Twins to be in the market for any of them, or for a lesser name either. The Twins have six starters for five rotation slots already, even with Ricky Nolasco probably out of the rest of the season after his invasive ankle surgery.

It's more likely that the Twins would trade one of their starters, but even that seems doubtful at this point. The veterans should be of interest only to contenders, and I doubt that any of them would bring back a solution to the shortstop problem. Trevor May should interest a building team, but I certainly wouldn't move him for a shortstop rental.

Somebody over the weekend asked on Twitter: Which starter would you want starting a Game 163 -- or, alternately, the wild card game? Obviously, the first goal would be to get there, and the Twins may not have the luxury of being selective about that starter, but we're being theoretical here. This is another way of asking: Who's the top starter in this rotation?

Start with this: Ervin Santana is out. His steroid suspension kicks in after Game 162. He's not eligible for postseason or any playoff games to get into the postseason.

Kyle Gibson is probably my choice. Not only does he have the best actual results of the remaining starters (2.85 ERA), his strikeout rate has risen dramatically as the season has progressed -- 8.2 strikeouts per game in June, 8.6 in three July starts to date. The discrepancy between his ERA and his underlying statistics has diminished.

Behind him, frankly, I still prefer May, but he's in the bullpen and will be barring trade or injury. Sunday's awful outing notwithstanding, I probably have more confidence in Tommy Milone right now than in Phil Hughes, but they're pretty even in my view. at least until Hughes fixes whatever it is that ails his fastball velocity. It's safe to say that Mike Pelfrey is at the bottom of my preferences for a win-or-go-home start.

But I'd certainly take that scenario over not making it to a win-or-go-home start.

Here comes E. Santana, 80 games late

Alex Meyer had
two major league
outings and didn't
fare well (ERA
16.88).

Friday's loss, so illustrative of the flaws in the 2015 Twins, dropped their record to 42-38. That adds up to 80, so Ervin Santana's steroid suspension is now fully served.

The Twins shipped Alex Meyer back to Triple A to make room for Santana on the 25-man roster. They outrighted minor league veteran Doug Bernier to make room for Santana on the 40-man roster. (Bernier could have refused the designation and become a free agent, but probably figured that the demand for 35-year-old utility infielders with 83 major league at-bats would be light.)

How the Twins will make room for Santana in the rotation remains unknown. The demotion of Meyer suggests that the Twins will not demote one of the current starters (in order of rotation, Phil Hughes, Trevor May, Kyle Gibson, Tommy Milone and Mike Pelfrey). Which would make the options:

• Six-man rotation
• A trade
• Shifting one of the five to the bullpen

There appears little appetite among the decision makers for the six-man rotation, and I agree, in large part because at least two of the five rely on their two-seam fastballs (aka sinker) and, theoretically at least, such pitchers tend to do poorly on long rest.

A trade may well be the ultimate answer, especially if Ricky Nolasco's ankle ever shows sign of improvement, but I'll be surprised if that happens promptly.

Which would leave the bullpen shift option, Regular readers can probably guess that I regard Pelfrey as the logical choice to move. It's not going to be Hughes or Gibson; Milone, as a soft-tossing lefty, is a poor fit for a relief role; May, despite the worst actual ERA of the five, has the best FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) of the group.

Pelfrey had been slated for the bullpen at the end of spring training (despite his objections), until the Santana suspension was announced. His ERA in June was 5.35. with peripheral numbers that were just as ugly. And there remain observers, such as the Pioneer Press' Mike Berardino, who believe Pelfrey's stuff will play better in the bullpen. (Berardino has repeatedly compared Pelfrey to Wade Davis, the Royal's wipe-out eighth-inning arm.)

Pelfrey starts today. We'll see if there are more starts in his future. I hope not, at least with the Twins.