Notes, quotes and comment

Baseball America over the weekend released Mock Draft 3.5. Why 3.5 rather than 4.0 I don't know. But they kept Kyle Wright, Vanderbilt right hander, as the first overall selection, as "the best combination of upside and modest risk." It's the first time they haven't had a different first pick for the Twins.

EPSN's Keith Law also issued a mock draft (behind a paywall) and had the Twins taking Wright:

I’ve heard that the Twins are in on at least four players at No. 1, including Brendan McKay (as a bat or a two-way guy but not just as a pitcher), Mackenzie Gore and Hunter Greene, but the current betting in the industry is that they will take Wright as the prospect with the best combination of floor and ceiling.

I haven't mentioned Gore in any of my draft posts; he's a high school lefty from North Carolina. My guess is that he would only be the pick if

• He agrees to a sharply below slot contract before the draft and
• The Twins have a plan to use the extra money on later picks.

That approach certainly worked for Houston when the Astros took Carlos Correa 1-1 over Byron Buxton.

Draft begins June 12.

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Nick Tepesch, who had one brief start with the major league club in early May, went on the Triple A disabled list with "elbow impingement." With an ERA at Rochester of 5.59 -- which if anything understates how poor his results have been (six homers in 29 innings) -- it's not like he was on the verge of coming back up, but it's another reason to expect the Twins to leave Kyle Gibson and Adalberto Mejia in the rotation for a while.

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Glen Perkins threw to hitters on Tuesday at Target Field. He threw 23 pitches, all fastballs. Chris Gimenez, one of the hitters to face him, said the velocity was in the mid 80s but saw good movement.

Perkins now returns to Fort Myers to continue his rehab. According to the Mike Berardino piece linked to above, the plan calls for a few more live BP sessions at extended spring training followed by a rehab assignment with the Class A Miracle. That sounds like a timeline for a late July return if everything works perfectly.

Can't get no relief

It's not truly accurate to blame Monday's bullpen disaster on Sunday's 15-inning marathon.

Imagine for a moment that Brandon Kintzler hadn't coughed up the lead Sunday and the Twins had won in nine innings. On Monday Paul Molitor would still have had the same problem: His three most trusted relief arms -- Kintzler, Taylor Rogers and Tyler Duffey --  had been worked hard. Duffey threw two innings Saturday and really shouldn't have been used Sunday but was, and Rogers and Kintzler each pitched Saturday and Sunday.

The Twins brought up two fresh arms in Drew Rucinski and Jason Wheeler, but Molitor didn't trust either with a six-run lead and six outs to go. That might have been his undoing,

He used Ryan Pressly, Craig Breslow and Matt Belisle, each having worked on Sunday after Kintzler blew the lead, and they each failed. .And yeah, the outfield defense, weakened by the injury to Bryon Buxton, didn't help, but still ...

Molitor's choice underlines the lack of bullpen depth. Rogers and Kintzler aren't the prototype late-inning arms, but they've been pretty effective. The problem is, two late inning arms and one multi-inning middle man -- which is what Duffey has been -- worked for Earl Weaver some 30 years ago, but it's not enough in the modern bullpen.

The Twins have aggressively shuffled their bullpen, and that continued after Sunday's game, with Rucinski returned to Rochester and Buddy Boshers recalled. But it continues to be a parade of low-impact arms. The power arms that might made a difference are awaiting surgery (Nick Burdi), recouping from injury (J.T. Chargois, Tyler Jay, Jake Reed) or simply deemed not ready for the majors (Mason Melotakis and John Curtiss). The roster moves are just swapping out one minor-league free agent for another.

I know this: The relief pitchers we saw Monday aren't the answer.

RIP, Jim Bunning

Jim Bunning at the 2016 Hall of Fame
induction ceremony.

We had a little news judgment debate Saturday at the Free Press: Whose death was more significant, Jim Bunning's or Gregg Allman? The majority thought Allman; I decided that the Hall of Fame and 24 years in Congress outweighed "Whipping Post" and a comically short tabloid marriage. I got both obits in, but I played Bunning's higher.

Not that I ever wholeheartedly embraced Bunning's HOF status. His record, in my view, is good but not outstanding: 224-184, 3.27. Not that it's a binary choice, but I'd go with Luis Tiant (229-172, 3.30) over Bunning. Bill James had a more favorable view of Bunning's record in some of his books, however.

Bunning did have a perfect game (1964, against the Mets; one is tempted to put an asterisk by it because it was the Mets, but even the Mets didn't get no-hit daily), and he did play a key role in one of the most storied collapses in pennant race history (pitching, and failing, repeatedly on short rest down the stretch as the Phillies blew a 6.5 game lead in the final 10 days in 1964), and he did play a key role in the hiring of Marvin Miller to head the players union.

The Hall of Fame's on-line bio of Bunning lists his primary team as Detroit, and he did play more for the Tigers than anybody else, but his plaque depicts him in a Phillies cap, which is more correct. There are four HOF pitchers with significant ties to the Phillies (none spent their entire careers there): Grover Cleveland Alexander, Steve Carlton, Robin Roberts and Bunning. Bunning is clearly the least of them, which is not an insult.

In Congress -- 12 years in the House, 12 in the Senate -- well, I follow politics fairly closely, and I can't remember any particular issue on which Bunning was a key figure. Time in 2009 named him one of the five worst senators, which isn't necessarily conclusive but something most officeholders would prefer to avoid.

Pic of the Week

Yankees manager Joe Girardi covers
home plate after being ejected by home plate
umpire Scott Barry.

A move right out of the Earl Weaver guide to making umpires hate you. We really don't see many theatrical manager arguments anymore, in large part because of replay. I don't think I miss them much.

Roster moves and injuries

Adalberto Mejia was indeed called up after Friday's game to make today's start. Adam Wilk, the lefty claimed off waivers from the Mets on May 10, was designated for assignment.

Wilk made two long relief appearances in some 16 days on the roster, working seven innings total. It was relatively easy to forget that he was on the roster, and I suspect that he's one of those guys who, when I look at the Baseball Reference page for this team five years from now, I'll think: Who was that?

Maybe he'll clear waivers and accept an outright to Rochester. Maybe he'll be claimed. I doubt anybody in the front office is overly concerned either way.

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A worse loss for the Twins was announced Friday: Nick Burdi needs Tommy John surgery.

I saw his second professional game, working for Cedar Rapids in a game in Clinton, Iowa in July 2014, and wrote about him (and Kohl Stewart) here. I am fairly certain that if on that muggy, buggy night I were told that the major league team would be in first place entering Memorial Day weekend in 2017, I would have expected that one or both of those pitchers would be part of that.

But Burdi, who was overwhelming the Southern League this year, can't seem to stay healthy, and Stewart is struggling in Double A (22 walks in 24 innings).

Anyway: scratch Burdi for 2017 and probably 2018, at least in terms of getting to Target Field. He was supposed to be a fast mover, but ... pitching at around 100 mph is a cruel occupation.

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Some injury news regarding established major leaguers:

Phil Hughes is seeking a second opinion on his arm issues. Glen Perkins is apparently going to pitch to hitters (what they call live batting practice) on Tuesday.

My lukewarm takes: Hughes isn't so sure his current issues aren't related to the thoratic outlet syndrome for which he had surgery last year. And I'm glad to see some progress for Perkins, but I'm not counting on him for 2017.

Widening the rotation

The Twins had an off-day Thursday. They have played 43 games so far; their opponent this weekend, the Tampa Bay Rays, have played 50. Nobody in baseball has played fewer games than the Twins to date.

The relative lack of games allowed manager Paul Molitor to sharply narrow his starting rotation this month. Ervin Santana, Hector Santiago and Phil Hughes have made every scheduled start (although Hughes went on the disabled list after his last start). Molitor has skipped a rotation spot at every opportunity and shuffled Jose Berrios (three starts this month), Kyle Gibson (two starts), Nick Tepesch (one start) and Aldberto Mejia (one start) in and out of the rotation and on and off the roster.

That approach is not going to work forever. The Twins have a shortfall of games played to make up in the remaining four months or so of the season, and the opportunities to skip a rotation spot will disappear.

Santana, Santiago and Berrios are the current givens in the rotation. Gibson is the current fourth, and while his leash is perceived to be short it's not obvious who will dislodge him. Sunday's starter has not, to my knowledge, been identified, but I expect it will be Mejia, which will require a roster move of some sort after Saturday's game.

Hughes' ailment has been announced as "biceps tendinitis," which I regard as the current term for "sore arm." (This is not to mock or deny the injury.) There is no public timeline for his return. Until he is ready to pitch again, I expect Mejia and Gibson to get the ball on a more regular basis. I have higher expectations for Mejia than for Gibson at this point. Molitor and the rest of the decision makers dearly want at least one of them to do something good with the opportunity,

Ervin Santana and the 1.80 ERA

Ervin Santana has made 10 starts this season, going 7-2 with a 1.80 ERA.

Wins are an exceptionally noisy stat, but he had seven wins total in each of his first two seasons with the Twins -- and now seven before the end of May.

More significant is the ERA, which is about 2.2 runs per nine innings below his career figure.

He's getting these results even though both his walks per nine innings and his strikeouts per nine innings have not only deteriorated from last season but are approaching career worsts.

According to Baseball Reference, Santana's FIP -- Fielding Independent Pitching, an attempt to determine what his ERA would be with an average fielding team supporting him -- is 4.10, which is pretty much in line with his career figure (4.22). The 2017 Twins have been a better than average fielding team, but I doubt that everybody's getting two runs per nine innings of benefit.

Well, let's check it out. Hector Santiago and Phil Hughes are the next highest pitchers on the staff in starts (nine apiece) and innings (50 for Santiago, 47 for Hughes). Santiago has a 3.96 ERA  and a 4.85 FIP -- a significant difference, but less than half what Santana is getting. Hughes, now on the disabled list, is the opposite -- his actual ERA, 5.74, is about a half run worse than his FIP, 5.29.

Small sample sizes are inherently noisy, and there are some subtle differences in the 2017 Santana -- a bit more movement on his pitches, a wider velocity differentation between his slider and changeup. His ERA in his final 18 starts of 2016 was 2.41, so we're really seeing a much longer run of markedly good results.

My expectation is that Santana's walk and strikeout rates will improve, which should lower his FIP. I also expect that his ERA will rise. Thirty-one hits allowed in 70 innings? That is not sustainable.