Grading the Twins rotation

Scott Diamond shone once more in a day game; for his
short career, his day ERA is 3.32, his night ERA 4.27.

Scott Diamond had his third straight quality start Wednesday, but it was the first time this season he was truly the ground-ball machine of 2012. According to Baseball Reference, he had 13 ground balls and five fly balls Wednesday, bringing him to a 40/35 split for the season.

Diamond's breakout 2012 was all about avoiding walks and getting grounders, so Wednesday was a welcome sign. I'll pick a nit and say I'd like to see him break past six innings next time out; while the bullpen has been very good, the rotation needs to eat more outs.

The Twins have used six starters so far. Vance Worley's had six starts, Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey five each, Diamond four, Liam Hendriks and Pedro Hernandez two each.

I classify the starters into three camps:

1) Semi-established: Diamond and Worley. These are the guys I can envision being part of the rotation for the next contending Twins team. Worley's had a difficult go of things so far: 0-4, 7.22 with less than 29 innings in the six starts, and his strikeout rate is down almost two per nine innings.

Indications are that Worley's leash is long, and it ought to be. But he's not doing well.

I'll give Diamond a C for the season so far. Worley has to be earning an F.

2) The disposable veterans: Correia and Pelfrey, the veterans brought in a free agents. I can't argue with Correia's results, even if I doubt he can sustain them. Pelfrey's been brutal. An A for Correia, another F for Pelfrey.

3) The fifth starters: Hendriks and Hernandez. I fully expect the Twins to cycle a number of pitchers through the rotation looking for someone to break through as Diamond did in 2012. Hendriks got the first shot and was quickly supplanted by Hernandez.

I'll give Hendriks a D; he wasn't all that awful in his two starts, but he did get sent down, and unlike last year, he hasn't dominated Triple A upon his return. If and when the Twins swap out another rotation piece, it probably won't be Hendriks getting the call. Cole De Vries and Sam Deduno are more likely (not that either is ready yet).

The left-handed Hernandez has split time between the rotation and long relief since his return, a pattern imposed by the offdays and weather problems, and has put up an ERA of 2.35, which is not to be sneered at. I'll give him a B, but, as with Correia, I don't really expect him to continue at that level.

Here's a key difference between Diamond and Hernandez, at least as far as one can judge Hernandez off 15.1 innings: Hernandez does not appear to be a worm killer. Baseball Reference has him at 20 grounders and 30 fly balls so far.

The state of the Twins bullpen

Rafael Perez has
yet to make a
game appearance
this season.

Rafael Perez, the former Cleveland Indians standout LOOGY now in the Twins organization, did not exercise his May 1 opt-out clause (if not in the majors by May 1, he could declare free agency). So he'll continue what appears to be a lengthy shoulder rehab, and maybe the Twins will eventually get something out his signing.

Even if he were ready to pitch in the majors — and his agreeing to stay with the Twins is a strong indication that he knows he's not — it's not easy to see where he'd fit. Here are the ERAs of the seven bullpen arms on the major league roster

Glen Perkins: 4.15 (allowed runs only in two blowout games, in one case because of a misjudged fly ball)
Jarod Burton: 0.96
Brian Duensing: 2.16
Casey Fien: 4.00 (all four runs allowed came in one bad outing; leads team in appearances)
Josh Roenicke: 1.50
Anthony Swarzak: 1.93
Ryan Pressly: 1.69

Tim Wood followed
five shutout innings
for Triple A Rochester
with a six-run
clunker on April 30.

Those seven have totaled 72 innings, with 65 strikeouts, 25 walks and 55 hits allowed. Combined ERA: 2.25. Only Roenicke has allowed a home run.

There's really nobody there who deserves to lose his job. Which means there's an interesting decision ahead, because Tim Wood, who is out of options, is on his minor league rehab assignment. I believe he can be on that assignment a month, and he's about halfway through that period.

By mid-month, Wood figures to be use-or-lose. Unless somebody in the current bullpen gets hurt or goes south, I don't see a place for him.

Contemplating Mike Pelfrey

Mike Pelfrey after Monday's game: 7.66 ERA in
five starts and 22.1 innings.

Credit Mike Pelfrey with recognizing that, although he is pitching in the major leagues, he is not pitching major league ball:

I don't make any excuses for the way I've pitched. It's unacceptable. It's below the standards I've set for myself. It's been a bad month. I guarantee I've had a lot worse months but this is not acceptable. Hopefully May will be a lot better. It better be a lot better or I'm sure things will change.

When even the pitcher in question talks about losing his rotation job, it's some smoke to signal a fire.

How much longer is Pelfrey's leash? If recent Twins history is a guide, he'll get a couple more starts to turn it around. Mid-May is the time when the Twins have disposed of "disposable veteran" starters who didn't start off well:

• Sidney Ponson, 2007, got seven starts, last one on May 12.
• Jason Marquis, 2012, got seven starts, last one on May 20.
• Ramon Ortiz, 2007, had an April comparable to Kevin Correia's this year, then deteriorated so quickly that he was out of the rotation after 10 starts. (After five starts, Ortiz had a 2.57 ERA; after 10, 5.75.)

Pelfrey was better Monday than he has been, but not all that good.

One issue might be who would take his place. Cole De Vries and Sam Deduno haven't taken the mound in a minor league game yet, and I doubt there's any enthusiasm for giving Liam Hendriks another go-around. Kyle Gibson's numbers with Rochester don't look too bad — I'm particularly struck with the 26 strikeouts in 27 innings — and maybe the Twins will deem him ready for his major league debut in a couple of weeks.

More on Kevin Correia

Kevin Correia threw eight shutout innings Sunday and
has now had more starts of seven or more innings (five) than
he had all of 2012 with Pittsburgh (three).

I was sharply critical in this blog all winter about the signing of Kevin Correia, which hasn't stopped the veteran right-hander from having a superb April.

Correia's superb April, in turn, has not convinced me that he's a pitcher worthy of a multi-year commitment.

I doubled down on my skepticism about him in the Monday print column, in which I traced his early success to a very high double-play rate, a very low home run rate, and a very low walk rate and concluded that the first two factors were probably unsustainable. No pitcher can consistently have a league-average groundball rate and a very high double play rate; no pitcher can have a league-average groundball rate and almost no home runs allowed.

But that's what Correia had done through his first four starts — and now through his first five starts.

The stats I cited in Monday's column were garnered from Correia's Baseball Reference page on Saturday, before his eight innings of shutout ball Sunday against a very good Texas Rangers lineup. How the relevant stats changed with that start:

Walk rate: Dipped from 1.3 walks per nine innings to 1.2. (As I said in the column, this may be a sustainable improvement; history says pitchers who have good control working for other teams have even lower walk rates pitching for the Gardenhire Twins.)

Strikeout rate: Dropped from 4.1 K/9 to to 3.7. Both numbers are red flags.

Strikeout/walk ratio: Dropped from 3.25 to 3 strikeouts for each walk. Still very good, and obviously based more on not walking anybody than on striking hitters out. (In fairness to Correia, his one walk allowed Sunday should have been his third strikeout. But even if the home plate umpire hadn't blown that 3-2 call, Correia's stats would still be lopsided.)

Double play rate: Fell from a lofty 42 percent to 28 percent, still more than twice the league average.

Ground ball/fly ball ratio: He now is at 0.88 grounders to fly balls, slightly higher than league average (and his own career average, which is a close match to league average).

Percentage of fly balls that become home runs: Down to 3.6 percent, less than half the league average (and his own career average, which again is a close match to league average).

And therein lies my unwillingness to buy into the idea that Kevin Correia is truly a better pitcher now than he has been. His groundball/fly ball tendencies remain essentially as they have been for years; it's the results that are out of the ordinary. And at some point, those results will snap back to normal as well.

Pic of the Week

Rajai Davis of the Toronto Blue Jays
spins away from a brushback pitch from
White Sox pitcher Chris Sale.

This photo is actually not from the past week; it was the runner-up to last Sunday's shot of Carlos Gomez dodging a bucket of water.

Using Oswaldo Arcia

Oswaldo Arcia has hit two three-run homers since his
call up; the rest of the roster has zero for the season.

When Darin Mastroianni went on the disabled list, Oswaldo Arcia was called up. This is not a simple swapout; Mastroianni is a fourth outfielder, and Arcia is something more.

There are organizations for whom Arcia would be the top prospect, or at least the top position player prospect. In the Twins system — regarded by Baseball America as the game's richest in position players — the 21-year-old (turns 22 on May 8) clearly ranks below the likes of Miguel Sano and Bryon Buxton. But Arcia's a talented hitter who figures to be a middle-of-the-order thumper on the next good Twins team.

So Terry Ryan and Co. didn't bring him to Minnesota to sit. Wherever he is, he's gonna play. And he has — on Friday he bopped his second home run of the week.

Fitting him into the current lineup means sitting somebody in the corner outfield-first base-catcher-designated hitter nexus. Arcia gives them six players for five lineup slots. And just as we know the Twins don't want Arcia rusting on the bench, we know Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Josh Willingham aren't sitting to make room either. (Arcia did pick up a couple of starts in Willingham's stead when Willingham had an illness, but that was about health matters, not about making room for Arcia.)

That leaves Chris Parmelee and Ryan Doumit, and so far it's been Doumit losing time to Arcia.

I'm fine with that. My core thought about the 2013 Twins is that all decisions ought to be made with an eye to the future, and one of the things that has to be accomplished is giving Parmelee enough playing time to decide what he is. Is he a good enough hitter to be a regular on a good team, or is he a platoon guy/second division regular?

Either seems possible. Parmelee's 25; the Twins owe it to themselves to find out what they have in the former first-round pick. Doumit's 32 and has a well-established track record. (Neither is hitting much so far.)

How long the Twins will try to juggle six players for five positions is unknown. I don't expect this arrangement to last all season. Maybe somebody gets traded, maybe somebody gets hurt, maybe Arcia goes back to Triple A. One way or another, something will change.

Pedro Florimon vs. Eduardo Escobar

Pedro Florimon leaps over a sliding Ian Kinsler on the first
of two potential third-inning double plays that weren't
converted Thursday. The Rangers didn't score.

Pedro Florimon entered spring training as the Twins de facto shortstop incumbent, and held on to the job.

He's gone a few games without a hit and hasn't reached base since the Angels series, but still has an on-base percentage of .385. It's just 40 plate appearances, but he's done some good work in those appearances. Most notably, six walks as opposed to just four strikeouts. This is, to be sure, out of line with his minor league record, which generally sports closer to three strikeouts for each walk. Has his pitch recognition really improved that dramatically that rapidly?

When Florimon's not at short, Eduardo Escobar generally is. Escobar's numbers -- just 26 plate appearances -- are ridiculous: .480/.500/.720. Obviously he's not that good a hitter; nobody is. Given sufficient playing time, his batting average and slugging percentage will probably be about half his current numbers. 

The truth is, the Twins aren't counting on either playing a big role on offense. That's why they generally hit ninth, and why Florimon is pinch-hit for with regularity. Their job is to get outs in the field and make life easier for a pitching staff that isn't capable of getting a lot of strikeouts.

And in that task, Florimon clearly could be more efficient. My sense watching Thursday night's game was that the up-the-middle combo of Florimon and Brian Dozier left a few outs on the table; in particular, it was surprising that they couldn't turn two on creaky Lance Berkman in the third inning.

In contrast, the Rangers converted a more difficult double play on Josh Willingham in the eighth inning to choke off the Twins best chance at a big inning. Elvis Andrus had to go into the hole to get Willingham's grounder, but the Rangers still turned two.

I don't know who's better defensively, Florimon or Escobar. I am increasingly doubtful that Florimon's glovework can justify keeping him in the lineup.