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| Mike Pelfrey: Assuming he passes his physical, he's back in the Twins rotation. |
Had this come before the the Twins landed Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes, I would have agreed. Now, not so much.
The money involved -- $11 million guaranteed plus incentives -- means Pelfrey ranks ahead of his fellow unimpressive holdovers from 2013.
The presumptive rotation:
Nolasco
Hughes
Kevin Correia
Pelfrey
? -- someone from the Scott Diamond / Sam Deduno / Kyle Gibson / Vance Worley group.
Somebody on Twitter said this gives the team depth. Well, only until the season starts. Diamond, Deduno and Worley are all out of options. They'd have to clear waivers to be sent to Rochester.
In truth, I'd rather have Pelfrey than Correia. There's a good chance that Pelfrey will be better in 2014 (another year removed from his elbow reconstruction, and his underlying stats were better than his actual results) and Correia was about as effective as he can be. But I'd rather see Gibson, Deduno and/or Diamond given a chance than either. Maybe -- maybe -- the Twins figure they can trade Correia.
Meanwhile, the Twins supposedly are still pursuing Bronson Arroyo and/or Matt Garza, either of whom would fit ahead of Hughes in that rotation.
Let's take a 2nd best case scenario. In other words, let's take the second best years in each of the 4 you list in the rotation and see what that looks like. W-L-ERA-WHIP
ReplyDeletePelfrey 13-11 3.72 1.360
Correia 12-11 4.21 1.298
Nolasco13-11 3.70 1.209
Hughes 16-13 4.23 1.265
That's a lot to hope for, but not unrealistic. If for some reason Deduno or Gibson can win you 12 to 15 games that starting staff looks pretty good. You won't win a division. But you are on your way to respectability. And that is really all the Twins fans are asking for this year at least. 2015 will be different.